


Dinner Date

by FiggyPudding (FunkyMeihem)



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse), Resident Evil - All Media Types
Genre: Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Kidnapping, Murder, Sex, Violence, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-05-08 02:02:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 51,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14684121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FunkyMeihem/pseuds/FiggyPudding
Summary: Vivian Murray becomes one of the Baker Family's newest abductions, and is spared, only to supposedly become a 'family member' and 'girlfriend' to their sociopath son Lucas. Unfortunately, neither participant is happy with this new arrangement, and after a very rocky start between the two, they begin making some plans of their own...





	1. Chapter 1

It was hard to find a motel in Dulvey, Louisiana that wasn’t seedy. Even the big-name hotels were seedy here, with sputtering lights, crooked and dirty blinds, and cracked pavement that filled with swamp water when it rained. But they’d wanted to save money, and they’d stayed in the smallest and seediest of the motels. A tidy twenty-four dollars a night, it had said, for two beds and a shower. Sure, the beds were hard as a very lumpy rock and the shower smelled moldy, but Hannah had insisted they could rough it for one night. Just one night, Hannah had said, and then in the morning they’d be back on the road and out of this shitty town forever.  
  
Vivian had decided not to make a big deal of it, and had shoved a chair up beneath the door handle, like she’d done in every hotel room she’d ever slept in. That night, she had fallen asleep in the bed closest to the shower, with the moldy smell stuck in his nostrils. The storm raged outside, and during one loud thunderclap, she had jolted upright when the door was busted in. She could remember being a little cranky that her chair-under-the-handle trick hadn’t worked at all. Their assailant had sent it flying with little more than a sweep of his arm, and then he was in the room and she and Hannah were screaming and were trying to fight or run or both.  
  
Nobody heard them over the raging weather, and when the bag had closed over her head, Vivian still smelled nothing but mold.

* * *

  
  
Since then, her world had been nothing but darkness and more mold. She’d been transferred from the car, felt the patter of rain on her back as she was carried into some place else, and then heard the screech of metal. She was roughly thrown onto the cold, hard surface beneath, and the metal screeched again. When she tried to move, she felt walls on every side of her, and above her, and she must have been enclosed in some hellish coffin. So she screamed until she couldn’t scream, and banged her bound fists wherever she could, and the smell of mold grew worse and worse.  
  
Time had gotten away from her after that. Maybe it had been hours, or more likely days, judging by her growling stomach and raging thirst. Several times she thought she could hear faint movement outside, and once, something that even sounded like a child’s giggling. But she no longer had a voice to cry out with, her throat broken and dry. After another day, she could barely even move. She lay there in the cold, damp, moldy dark, and waited to die.  
  
And then the drawer was being pulled out, and bright, bright lights flooded her senses. She made a little noise and tried to shield herself, but a pair of bony hands were on her, pulling on her arms and lifting her as if she weighed nothing at all. Her head still spinning from the sensory overload after days of nothing but silence and blackness, she was vaguely aware that she was being carried, and then unceremoniously dumped onto cracked, reeking black tile. She flinched and recoiled when she was blasted suddenly with a stream of cold water, and then realized it was water as she held up her face and opened her mouth to drink. It simultaneously tasted horrible, and was the best damn thing she’d ever drank in her life.  
  
“Aw, look at the poor thing. You were right. Bless her, she just needed some tender lovin’ care.”  
  
A female voice. Peeling open her eyes, she tried to focus. A woman was standing watching her, a few paces away from the disgusting shower. Short and rather dumpy, she looked to be in her fifties but seemed to be a bit…sickly. Her features were nearly as gray as her stringy hair, and her eyes and her teeth and even her gums were gray too when she smiled. A stained, aged dress hung shapelessly on a sagging frame, down to her bowed knees, and her apron was bearing suspicious-looking dark stains. A cockroach emerged from her apron pocket, skittered around her legs, and the vanished under the rim of her dress to places unknown.  
  
Still reeling, Vivee reached out to her. Her first attempts to use her voice were fruitless, uttering little wheezes and squeaks. The strange woman chuckled in a kind and matronly way, leaning towards her and gently taking her hand.  
  
“There there, honey, don’t you get too excited fer your own good, now. We’re just gonna get you freshened up and get a warm meal into ya, then put ya up in a softer bed. And don’t you worry about them bruises. I know my boy don’t take as much care with handling the girls as he should, but he don’t mean it. Ya know how young men are at that age.”  
  
Vivee stared at her, hugging her sopping and shivering form, and just nodded. Despite the woman’s warm tone, something about her seemed…wrong, somehow. It was making her hair prickle and stand on end, trembling in a way that couldn’t be blamed on just the cold water. She tried to withdraw her hand from the woman’s grasp, but was stopped when the stranger’s fingers suddenly tightened around her. And the way she was smiling…something wasn’t right with her. Maybe mental issues of some sort. And though Vivee tugged and tried to withdraw, the woman’s smile grew strained and she squeezed her fingers until the bones nearly snapped, until the younger girl whined and bowed her head to shrink away.  
  
Immediately, the woman moved to soothe the hurt she had just caused, shushing and cooing as she finally released her. Suddenly sporting a towel that looked like it had been partially soaked in black goop, she went to wrap it around Vivee before she could really protest.  
  
“Shh shh shh, aren’t you just the sweetest lil’ thing. Come on, sweetheart, let me help you out of there. Just a bit shy, aren’t ya? Well don’t you be afraid to holler for me if you need anythin’ at all. I’m Marguerite Baker. Now, let’s get you warmed up and into some dry clothes…Good think we kept some of Zoe’s old things around just in case. S’just for occasions like this.”  
  
Still soaked and only slightly less filthy, baffled and more than a bit shellshocked, Vivee followed Marguerite up and out of the darkness of the morgue basement.

* * *

  
  
“C’mawn now, sugar!”  
  
Marguerite led her through the decrepit old house, occasionally looking back to make sure the girl was following, trying to keep up on skinny and shaking legs. Navigating several sets of stairs, she was led into what seemed to be a tiny spare bedroom. Like most of the house she had seen, it was old and didn’t seem like it had been used in a while, with peeling wallpaper, moth-eaten blankets, and that moldy smell, always that moldy smell. The windows had been boarded up, and what looked like bars and a roll of barbed wire crisscrossed over the wood. A pile of clothes had been set out on the foot of the bed, and the vanity was covered with bottles and containers, and even an old jewelry box. And Marguerite was still smiling like she was introducing her to her room at a bed and breakfast, instead of plucking her from cold storage in the morgue in their godforsaken basement and dumping her here instead.  
  
Vivee looked at her, licking chapped lips and finally managing a soft, “Wh-what is this?” She hesitated, then quailed and added a little “Mm…ma’am?”  
  
“So polite, I just love this one,” Marguerite smiled instead of answering her, seeming to be speaking to nobody in particular. “It’s about time we had someone with ladylike manners around this place.” Her pale, gray eyes slowly rolled back into focus, staring at the girl again. “My children are just going to love you. Evie’s been wanting a new playmate for a while now, and Lucas…Well, Lucas is such a handful at his age, but a mama can’t hold onto her baby forever…Right, Evie?”  
  
Vivee looked around, but heard only silence. The old woman clearly had mental problems. She’d hoped that maybe the old lady could be persuaded to lead her to an exit, or maybe get her a phone or some way to summon help. But she knew better than to antagonize her. Something bad would definitely happen if she antagonized her. So she swallowed and tried to smile, even if it was lopsided and half-hearted. “N-nice to meet you, Miss…” She searched her memory for what the woman had said. “Baker? Mrs. Baker. I’m Vivian…Vivee Murray.”  
  
“Vivian! What a pretty name! Vivian was…my aunt? I had an Aunt Vivian?” A flicker of something almost normal passed over the old woman’s face, a faint recognition of something faded and almost forgotten. The question lingered as if she couldn’t quite remember her own life, but was gone again when that same blank smile returned. “Well. If everything goes real well, we might just have you changing things to Vivee Baker. Because if Evie likes you, Lucas will like you too.”  
  
“Lucas?” Vivee echoed weakly, an image bubbling up to the surface through the black mold in the cracks of her brain. A younger man, dressed in a hoodie, silhouetted against the lights from outside and his face obscured as he beat them bloody and stole them away. “…Lucas…”  
  
“In fact, best you get yourself prettied up before you meet him tonight, and everybody else. But just a little powder and some blush, we wouldn’t want any inky lashes or fucking RED PAINTED LIPS LIKE A GODDAMN WHORE IN MY HOUSE, D’YOU UNDERSTAND ME, GIRL? THESE ARE MY BABIES AND I WON’T HAVE ANY SLUTS CORRUPTING MY ONLY SON.”  
  
Vivee reeled back at the abrupt change of tone, Marguerite nearly screaming in her face by the end of it. She backed away until her knees hit the back of the bed, both hands raised in plaintive defense. “Yes! I mean, no! I w-won’t! Mrs. Baker! I won’t! I’m not that type of girl, I promise!”  
  
“…Oh, good,” Marguerite smiled, sweet as pie once more. “I’ll just leave you here to get ready for dinner, then. Mmmmmm, mm! I’ve worked especially hard on this feast tonight, I just know you’re gonna love it. And you be good to my boy, y’hear?” She winked at the girl as if sharing some private secret between the two, then turned to go.  
  
“Wait!” Vivee straightened, swallowing hard before asking, “Hannah. My friend Hannah, she was here too! Do you know where she is? Is she okay?”  
  
The woman stared at her for a very long time, still smiling as if waiting, or listening to someone again. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I don’t think I know that one. Go on now, I think you’d best jus’ be worrying about your own self…See you at dinner, Vivee…” The words hung almost sibilant in the air, with what Vivee swore was a little buzz in her tone before the Baker woman shut the door, the click of the lock heard soon after.  
  
She stared at the shut door, and decided to try anyway. A futile hope to begin with, and pulling and tugging at the knob, it was locked tight. The windows were definitely a no-go, with the rebar and spiked wire to contend with even if she did manage to pry the wood off somehow. With no obvious exits, she swallowed down her panic and turned back to her bed, shucking off the filthy black-stained clothes she’d been cocooned in for the past week and pulling on the dry outfit that had been left for her. Just a simple pair of jeans and a faded yellow lady’s t-shirt. It didn’t fit her perfectly, too tight around the ribs and the pants were a little long, clearly made for someone taller and more narrow than her. She vaguely remembered a ‘Zoe’ being mentioned. One of her kids, maybe, or another victim? She wasn’t sure.  
  
But at least she was finally semi-clean and dry, wrinkling her nose in disgust as she threw her dirty clothes into a basket by the door. Casting a doubtful glance at the vanity mirror, with its antique ballerina lamp giving scant light to the little bedroom, she took a seat and stared at her reflection in the stained mirror. She had a bruised eye and her hair was still a mess, and her lip was split and covered in what looked like black scabs. Horrified, she began scraping them away with her fingernails, even if it re-opened the wound and made blood slick down her chin. As she scrubbed a handkerchief at her face, she wondered what she was supposed to go from here.  
  
She was so hungry, terribly hungry, and weak. Maybe it would be best to just sit tight until it was time for dinner. Then she could get some of her strength back and start a more earnest bid for escape. Although the prospect of food also brought its own dangers. She would have to meet the rest of the Baker family, and that very thought sent tendrils of dread clawing through her aching, empty stomach. But at this point, what choice did she have?  
  
Cleaning the rest of her face, she turned to the jewelry box and the scattered tubes of make-up within. Not her colors, really. And she was definitely not wearing anything red, after Marguerite’s outburst. But just in case the woman decided to inspect her for whatever godforsaken reason, she smeared a bit of color onto her eyelids and a little bit of pink on her sallow cheeks. The cherry lip gloss in particular felt like heaven on her cracked lips, even though it was already used. It was all a rather pitiful attempt at dolling herself up, but maybe it would be enough.  
  
Her limbs still felt shaky and she was still exhausted from her trek through the house; dehydrated, starving, and atrophied from her time spent in the morgue drawer. With her already low energy reserves depleted, she curled herself miserably atop the mothball-reeking covers, pulled herself into a fetal position with her face buried into her arms, and fell asleep.

* * *

  
  
“You have to be nice to him,” a little voice whispered to her.  
  
“Mm-hm…” Vivee answered, eyes closed and not really listening.  
  
“If you make him happy, you’ll be happy too. But…if you make each other sad…”  
  
“…hm?”  
  
There was a sudden ripping pain between her eyes, like something had brought an axe chopping down into her brain. She flailed, kicking out with all her limbs, and twisted and struggled until she fell off the bed with a hollow thump. With panic still surging through her, she realized that there was someone knocking at her door. That must have been what the pain was, just the sound of knocking invading her dreams, wasn’t it? Holding a hand to her clammy forehead, she rose to her feet and looked to the door as it squeaked open.  
  
Marguerite was there, holding a little lantern whose illumination did nothing to help lessen the severity of her gray and sickly appearance. Still, she was smiling, and gestured Vivee forward with a little nod. “There y’are, wakey wakey. Hope you had a nice nap, but it’s time for supper. Right this way!”  
  
Once more she followed the old woman through the sprawling mansion, this time peering around at her surroundings. Everything looked old and worn and peeling, like they’d let the upkeep go to hell years ago and squalor had set in. The roof was leaking and precious little light seeped in through the boards and barricades over every window and door, the way only partially lit by candles. And…god, what was that stench? Something even worse than the moldy smell was wafting from the area they were headed towards, strong enough that Vivee almost put a hand over her nose, and thought better of it when Marguerite smiled at her.  
  
“Mmmmmm! Smells good, don’t it?”  
  
She swallowed, trying to breathe through her mouth, voice going a little nasal. “Y-yes, Mrs. Baker.”  
  
“Everyone! I told y’all we had a special guest this evenin’!” Marguerite was suddenly behind her, all but pushing her into what looked like a dining room. The smell was stronger here, almost overpowering, and the source was made immediately obvious. The table was littered with what looked like rotting entrails, hunks of meat and offal slick with gray and black veins of sickening goop. She couldn’t even make out what anything was; bulbous intestines, raw lungs, a slick organ with tubes sticking out of it that she couldn’t recognize, and a bowl full of white things floating in black sludge. And some of it did not look like it came from an animal…  
  
All the color left her face, and she could feel the threatening gas of vomit and bile start to rise up, eroding the enamel on the backs of her teeth. Even if she didn’t have anything left in her empty stomach to puke, it sure felt like something was going to come up. Biting her lower lip to keep herself in check, she tried not to breathe in and made herself turn away from the disgusting site, to the people surrounding the table. Marguerite’s fingers suddenly closed around her arms, keeping her still, while she nodded to each person in turn.  
  
“That there is my husband, Jack,” she said, giving a little finger-wiggling gesture to the burly white-haired elderly man who was sawing apart a rack of suspicious-looking ribs with his knife and gave her no notice.  
  
“This is my sweet little baby girl, Eveline,” the woman gestured to an even older woman who was laying motionless in a wheelchair, old enough to be someone’s great-grandmother and hardly passed as a ‘sweet little baby girl’. But she stirred slightly and opened up a pair of rather glassy eyes that were the same pale blue as the rest of her family’s. Vivee managed to crack what was probably a terrified-looking smile at the old woman, but that was all.  
  
“And my one and only son, Lucas!” A jerk of her arms turned her in the direction of the last chair. Vivee found herself faced with the scowling countenance of a younger man about her age, in the same hoodie he’d worn when he had attacked her and her friend back at the hotel. It was the first time she had ever truly seen him.  
  
He was as pale as death, crisscrossed with blue veins under his skin, and reddish-black shadows pitted in the sockets of his eyes and beneath cheeks that were so gaunt she could cut her finger on them. A pair of too-wide, bulging, Baker-family blue eyes stared at her with a look she definitely did not like. His ghoulish appearance was not helped by a rather unfortunately high hairline, little bristles of gray-brown sticking out from beneath his hoodie, matching the sparse attempts at a beard. As she watched, his mouth twisted into a frown and he snorted at her with no small amount of derision.  
  
“Ya gotta be fuckin’ kidding me! SHE’S the surp’rahs?”  
  
Vivee frowned right back at him, even as Marguerite fussed over her and fluffed up her hair a little bit as if that would help anything. “Lucaaaas, you be nice to our company now, y’hear? We raised ya better than that. Everybody, this is Vivian, and I think she’s a mighty fine surprise, right, Evie? It’s not every day we get such a sweet young thing fer supper…Or at least, it’s been a few weeks since they were at the table instead of on it, hehehe!”  
  
He groaned and leaned back in his seat. “C’mon, Evie, why d’you even want with this shitty lil’ mousy one? She’s no fun and not our style, she’s no good for anyone. How about the blond one with the big titties, d’we still got her?”  
  
Blond and big titties? Vivee looked up at him frantically. “Hannah? You mean Hannah? Is she okay! Where did y-”  
  
The white-haired man slammed a huge fist into the tabletop, causing everyone to jump and look his way, going silent. The patron of the Baker family was clearly not to be taken lightly. Dragging in a long, slow sip of his beer, his own pair of pale-blues tilted up at them through the glare of his glasses. “The other girl turned, near on two days ago, so you can just go on and forget her. And boy, your little sister chose this one special, just for you, and I think it’s high fuckin’ time ya give her a proper thank-you before I take it out of yo’ goddamn hide.”  
  
Lucas lifted both hands quickly, though he looked more put-upon more than actually threatened. With a frown, he turned to the withered old lady still laying prone in her wheelchair nearby. “Aw, Evie, you know I’m always reeeaal grateful for your…presents. But this’un? Why?”  
  
Vivee’s eyes darted as the old woman struggled to even lift her head, her voice a throaty creak, breathless just from speaking aloud. “…You kept saying you…wanted a girlfriend…She’s real smart, Lucas…Heh…hehe…Not someone boring like the last one…?”  
  
Very slowly, both their brows lifted. Vivee and Lucas stared at each other across the table of reeking meat, neither of them seeming thrilled at this new prospect. Vivee’s mind was still racing over their words, something about Hannah ‘turning’, and the fact that apparently she wasn’t the first one in this situation, and she wondered what had happened to the last ‘boring’ girlfriend. Lucas glared at her more than a little venomously, mouth screwing to one side before he snorted and took a long drink off his own beer, turning away and muttering something about titties that didn’t sound very kind.  
  
Marguerite yanked on Vivee’s arm again, hard enough to hurt and get her attention, and abruptly shoving her down into a chair. Now faced with the table full of foul, reeking meat and entrails, some of it still steaming, she could no longer worry about Lucas. All her willpower needed to be funneled into simply not vomiting all over herself then and there. A bowl of ‘soup’ was placed in front of her, and she tried not to look at the things that bubbled just below the foul, viscous scum floating on the surface.  
  
“W-wow…You didn’t have to go to all this trouble for me, Mrs. Baker…” Vivee’s voice shook, fragile and false. Across the table, she saw Lucas roll his eyes. “But that’s…really nice of you?”  
  
“She’s so sweet, Jack,” Marguerite smiled, apparently taken in by even the most basic of manners. “Y’know I love the sweet ones…”  
  
“Mmm mmm, know ya do,” the older man replied easily, still barely looking at them and crunching into his gruesome meal. “Feed her up, Marguerite. Girl hasn’t touched her supper.”  
  
“Oh my Lord, where are my manners? Vivian, dear, you just reach on across the table and you take whatever you like. This here’s a family-style table, and you and my boy are gonna be family! C’mon, eat up!” Marguerite beamed, scratching wildly at something that was crawling behind her ear for a moment, before she began ladling more slop onto the plate in front of her…something gray and blue and slick and cold…  
  
Vivee swallowed down another surge of puke, but was keenly aware that now all eyes were on her. She hadn’t been forced to do something like this since she was a little kid, but desperate times called for desperate measures. She scraped at her plate and found the least-offensive thing there…some sort of bite-sized gray things…and speared one on her fork. Smiling at the Baker parents in what she hoped was a convincing manner, she slowly lifted it to her mouth and plucked it off the fork with her teeth, trying to not let it touch her lips. Holding it between her cheek and away from her tongue, she pretended to chew…  
  
Don’t vomit. Don’t vomit. Don’t vomit…  
  
She lifted a hand and gave a rather lame little thumbs-up signal to Mrs. Baker, and said, “Mmmm!”  
  
There had been tension in the woman’s shoulders…like a hyena, waiting for her prey to hesitate or show weakness, her gaze keen to spot any mistake. But it all dropped from her posture as the woman hissed a pleased noise through her gray teeth and began digging into her own meal, with sloppy wet noises that did nothing to help Vivee’s appetite, or the roiling acid in her stomach while she tried not to choke on the ‘food’ hidden in her jaws.  
  
Pretending to wipe at her mouth, she spat the food out into the napkin as carefully as she could, lowering it back to her lap and rolling it onto the floor. There was already such a long-standing mess and stain beneath the table that her borrowed shoes were squishing in it, and hopefully nobody would notice. Marguerite was looking at her again. She repeated the motion, putting something in her mouth, transferring it to the napkin, tossing it beneath the table, and trying not to let her tongue touch any of it in the process.  
  
“How’s the fuckin’ food, Vivian?” Lucas asked from across the table, a shit-eating grin spreading across his face. Before she could respond or even manage a glare, he’d gathered up a handful of entrails from the dish in front of him, and pitched them straight at her. “C’mawn, girl, eat up! Can’t have mah _girlfriend_ goin’ hungry!”  
  
“Lucas!” Marguerite said, in a very weary way that hinted that she’d said that name in that tone many, many times before this one. “Lucaaaaas! Manners!”  
  
“Vivian! Vivee! Have s’more, baby!”  
  
Another handful of rotting gray bits hit her, making her flinch, and then Lucas was standing up and throwing a whole plate at her like a goddamn savage. Only this time, some of it spattered onto the old woman, Evie, in the chair next to her. Evie made a little noise at the impact, bits of organ meat sliding sickeningly down her once-clean shirt.  
  
For a moment, everybody froze, and there was a dawning look of regret on Lucas’s features that signaled he knew that he had just massively fucked up.  
  
Jack was on him in a second, grabbing him by the collar of his hoodie and dragging him along the floor like a charging bull until he was slammed into the opposite wall. Lucas was babbling excuses and apologies, and it sounded like he was even trying to pin it on Vivee, but his father was having none of it. While the others looked on, he brought one massive hand up, curled his knuckles, and hurtled it forward, slamming into his son’s face with all the force of a gorilla with cinderblocks tied to its fists. Lucas bellowed and clutched at his crushed nose, and Jack punched him again. Then again, and again, and again. Each time his fist came away, more of the son’s face was attached to it and Lucas’s yelling became wet and gurgling, until the younger man’s features were nothing but a mess of broken bones and melting flesh, mixed with a blood and black sludge mixture that horrified Vivee even more than the food.  
  
“Jack! Jaaaaack, that’s enough!” Marguerite cried, pleading for the beating to stop. “I’m sure he’s learnt his lesson! Not in front of the comp’ny!”  
  
Vivee watched in shocked silence as Jack dropped his son’s limp body carelessly onto the dirty floor. Growling to himself, the man plodded back to his chair, his fist still covered in viscera and little flecks of white that might have been bone shards. Acting as if nothing had happened and that he hadn’t just murdered his own son in cold blood a few feet away, he picked up his beer and took a sip.  
  
“Gawdamnit. Man can’t even have a quiet dinner with his own fam’ly without that boy fuckin’ something up. Marguerite, you get Evie cleaned up.”  
  
“All right, all right. C’mon, sweetie, I’ll getcha a nice clean shirt,” she said, taking hold of Evie’s wheelchair and calmly starting to cart her off, walking right by Lucas’s slumped body and leaving a trail of his smeared blood under the wheels.  
  
Vivee was left alone with the corpse of Lucas and the murderous Baker father. For what seemed like several long minutes, she opted to just remain frozen, as though she wouldn’t be noticed if she simply sat still enough. And it seemed to be working, as Jack continued ignoring her. But eventually she realized that her hands were shaking rather violently, and she was starting to feel a little bit faint. Clearing her throat as politely as she could, she tried using manners again.  
  
“M-Mr. Baker?”  
  
His fork and knife paused in their scraping, and he looked at her.  
  
“May I please be excused to the bathroom?”  
  
He just stared at her, as though he didn’t understand the question. He even turned to where Marguerite had been a few minutes before, as though she might have held the answers, but she was gone. He seemed oddly lost and without guidance for such a simple request, and had to concentrate before answering.  
  
“Mmmm…Marguerite and Evelyn’ll be back in just a minute, best we all can just sit down and finish our supper. Ain’t no reason t-”  
  
“Ghhhaddamnit…I’ll take ‘er…”  
  
Vivee’s eyes darted when another voice, slurred and wet but still familiar, sounded from Lucas’s slumped body. His jaw, though broken, was moving, and a bubble of red oozed from his nostrils and popped all over his chin as he uttered a little cough. He was slowly coming to, twitching and neck popping noisily as he lifted himself up off the filthy ground. Holding his broken face in one hand, more irritated than traumatized, he managed to turn to where Vivee was still sitting. As she watched, one blue eye rolled back into place, the orb staring around blankly in all directions before it clicked its nerves correctly and was able to focus on her. Still grumbling, he nodded towards the hallway.  
  
“You gotta take a shit or don’tcha? Fuck’s sake, hurry the fuck up.”  
  
Spurring her legs into motion, she made herself rise, and quietly followed the younger Baker out into the hallway. His crushed face was still dripping blood all over the front of his hoodie, and he paused to make sure Jack wasn’t following them. He was not. For a brief moment, Vivee considered trying to bolt. Maybe she could make it to a door or window and it wouldn’t be locked, and then she could take off into the swamp and just hope for the best. Instead she just followed placidly along behind him, hands still shaking and saying nothing.  
  
“Strong silent type, eh? Or are ya just quiet ‘cos you’re scared? Gotta hand it to ya, made it through a dinner without screaming or anything, unlike the last one,” he said, pausing to pop his jaw back into place and rolling it a few times. “Although you’re lucky they’re too fuckin’ stupid to notice you throwing your food on the floor. Mama woulda thrown a goddamn fit if she still had any brains left.”  
  
“…You died,” Vivi said dumbly.  
  
“Yeah, yeah,” he snorted, blood spraying from one nostril. “A little. Arright, come on in here.”  
  
He led her into the bathroom, another filthy place with moldy tiles and a bathtub full of substances she didn’t want to imagine. He ignored them, going to lean on the cracked sink counter as he regarded her balefully, arms crossing. She turned away from him so she wouldn’t have to look at his creepy eyes, holding her stomach and uttering little sickened gurgles. Probably would have been puking now, if she had anything to puke. The taste of those…things…that she’d had to hold in her mouth…and then seeing Lucas’s shattered skull piecing itself back together in front of her…It was all getting to be a little much.  
  
“Aw, you’re breakin’ my heart, Vivian,” he said dryly. “Okay, lissen up because I don’t feel like fuckin’ repeating myself. If you want, I can get you something that’ll off you real quiet-like. Now normally, that ain’t my style, but Evie and Mama are gonna be breathing down my neck about the whole girlfriend thing, and I don’t wanna take the blame for killing you. And it’s gonna be better than the alternatives, so whaddaya say? Can put something in a lil’ chocolate or whatever for you, and then you just expire real peaceful-like, and no more fuss!” He spread his hands and smiled lopsidedly at her, like the decision was already made. “Trust me, take it while it’s still on the table and you still got enough brains to play along.”  
  
Leaning one hand on the wall for support, she turned to peek at him under her raised arm, shaking her head. “What? No! No, I don’t wanna die.”  
  
He just looked perturbed, like he was inconvenienced by her basic self-preservation. “Jesus christ, you bitches always make such a goddamn big deal of everything. Lucas, I don’t wanna die. Lucas, take my friend, just let me live. Lucas, I’ll suck your dick if you turn off the machine. Lucas, I’m on fire and everything hurts, have mercy…Fuck…A pain in my ass, t’be sure.”  
  
She fixed him with a stare that said ‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ better than any spoken words.  
  
“Speaking of ass, though,” he said, brows lifting just a little from where they were furrowed, “Been a while since I’ve had a girlfriend. I mean, before I do ya that favor, I wouldn’t say no to a good clean fuck, if you want t’-”  
  
“I’m not your girlfriend,” she said in a low voice. She’d never been as brave or boisterous as Hannah…But Hannah was gone now, and she was stuck as a prisoner of the crazy hillbillies who had killed her. “What you did to Hannah, I’d never…”  
  
“Lissen, ‘sweetie’, I’m not thrilled about this arrangement either. I had a perfectly good blond girl in a drawer, waiting for me. And instead Evelyn decided to give me you, while the good one’s probably got those sweet tits sliding right off her ribs as we speak. But! I guess you’re my girlfriend now, whether I like it or not. So that’s one more fucking thing I gotta deal with on top of everything else. Jesus…just gimme a second to think, here…”  
  
Vivee opted for silence again, needing a moment to think as well. She had no clue how to handle all these new revelations, or why Lucas seemed to be so beholden to the old lady in the wheelchair. Some arranged redneck marriage by his grandma? He had her completely alone and could have easily killed her this very moment, but something was keeping him from it. He spoke like killing her was a mercy, though, even though it was apparent he was already a murderer several times over. Also the fact that several minutes ago she had watched him die in a rather savage way, only to be some sort of weird, ugly form of immortal? What the hell was any of this?  
  
Her empty stomach snarled violently, reminding her that her ‘dinner’ had yielded her no food and she was still literally starving to death. It was loud enough that she tried to clamp both hands over it to stifle the sound, and Lucas snickered aloud.  
  
“Guess I could leave ya to just waste away, might be easier…or I could tell mama that _someone_ ain’t been eatin’ what’s on her plaaaaate?”  
  
She shook her head at him frantically.  
  
“Aw, hell, just teasing, don’t give me that look. I ain’t a snitch. I like to handle things with a more personal touch…And shit, Evie’s gonna be prodding around soon. All right, you and me are going on a date tonight. Nothin’ fancy, somethin’ reeeaaaal casual, just us getting to know each other, hash a few things out as to what it’s gonna be like, and talk about that sweet, sweet deal that’s still on the table if you just wanna take it or anythin’…” His too-wide, bulging eyes looked her up and down again.  
  
“I said no.”  
  
“Ghhrrrrrrm, fuck you, Vivian! You’re not makin’ this easy on anybody! Fuck, fuck, okay, you just wait here and try to think real happy thoughts about me if Evie starts poking. I’m gonna go talk to mama. Oh yeah, keep up with the whole ‘good girl’ thing, she seems t’be into that right now fer some reason. Just don’t mention this little conversation to anyone and play along with the whole girlfriend thing, and if you’re real sweet to me, I’ll get you something to eat. Real food, as in _for_ people, not _by_ people. Whaddaya say, ‘sweetie’?”  
  
She wanted to protest, deny him, and point out that he’d done nothing but insult her and lech on her murdered friend for the past half hour, and that wasn’t even mentioning him beating her up and kidnapping her to whatever hellhouse this was. But she was very confused, very afraid and unsure of her surroundings, and very, very hungry.  
  
“Can…you promise you won’t hurt me?”  
  
He gave a giggling snort of laughter. “Tch! Heh, fffhf! No.”  
  
So much for that. Frowning, she held her empty belly, so ravaged by hunger and thirst that it was overpowering her caution. “But there’s real food?”  
  
“Yeah, I can get you a little somethin’, unless…sheeeyit, you’re not one of those vegan freaks, are ya?”  
  
His family was only a few rooms away, literally eating people, and still he eyed her like she was the odd one out. She just shook her head, although if she made it out of this house, she was already considering never eating any form of meat ever again. And hopefully, with whatever food it was, he wouldn’t be throwing it at her and insulting her the whole time, while going on about her dead friend’s tits…  
  
Why was she humoring this guy, again?  
  
Something like doubt must have flickered across her face, because he merely sneered another wide grin down at her, lifting himself up to his full height. With his face mostly grown back, he made a nasty little kissing noise at her, lips puckering, before passing by her and heading out the door. “Hey, it’s not like it’s really your call, anyway. I’ll see you later tonight for our date. Dress up in somethin’ real pretty, now…See if I can’t at least get some enjoyment out of this before it all goes to shit.”  
  
And with that, Lucas slammed the door behind him and she was left in the dirty bathroom alone, with a very bad feeling about all of this.


	2. Chapter 2

Marguerite had collected her from the bathroom and led her back to her room, asking her repeatedly if she had enjoyed the meal. Vivee said she had. What had been her favorite? That question had thrown her for a loop, and the only thing she could think to say was ‘chitlins’ because she was hardly an expert in southern food. But Marguerite had just laughed and agreed that she made very good chitlins, and she’d make her some extra next time, and then locked her right back in her room again, telling her to be good.  
  
She’d been on a few bad dates in her time, but this was probably going to rank up there as the worst. But he had food, and apparently a sense of self that his parents lacked. She wasn’t sure if that made him any less dangerous, though. He was just as violent and unpredictable as the others, but…smarter. And that was a bad, bad combination. But he had food. He had food, and she was dying, and she could pretend at being his girlfriend and making his grandma happy, if he would feed her something that wasn’t rotting gray meat.  
  
They hadn’t left her any more clothes, so she remained in her entrails-spattered yellow shirt. And even though it was moldy and unpleasant and starting to come apart, she was keeping her bra on, especially around that creep. She also might be able to hide some sort of weapon in the strap or some such, but other than a dresser full of old blankets and spare towels, there wasn’t much to be scavenged in her tiny spare bedroom. With nothing else to do, she sat at the vanity mirror and tried to comb some of the tangles out of her hair, and waited.  
   
At some point, though without a clock she had no idea of the time, there was finally a harsh rapping at the door.  
  
“Vivian! Hey! It’s yer knight in shining goddamn armor.”  
  
Immediately her eyes half-lidded and her lips set into a frown. “I’m here.”  
  
There was fumbling, cursing, and clicking before the door opened, and Lucas was there in the same greasy hoodie and even greasier smile just like before. “Heeeeeey, Viv, baby…And….Evie, don’t you think I don’t see you sneakin’ around out there, girlie girl!” His voice suddenly went up several octaves, from mocking sweetness to something that might have been approaching semi-genuine sweetness. “I’m just here to pick Vivian up for our date, then we’re gonna go play some games, watch some movies, maybe even hold haaaaaands…”  
  
He paused as if listening to something, although Vivee didn’t hear anyone.  
  
“Oh, nah, nah, I’d rather her hands still be attached, I think. You go on now and I’ll tell ya all about how our date goes later, even all the huggin’ and kissin’ and icky stuff.”  
  
This time she swore she could hear the faintest little echo of an “Eeewww!” from out in the hall, high-pitched and disgusted like a little girl who was being shown a gross bug. Was there a little kid in this house too? A child, trapped in this awful place?  
  
As she watched, his pasted-on smile abruptly dropped into a grimace of revulsion, and he muttered a few curses before he turned towards Vivian and nodded to the door. “She’s gone. Hurry the fuck up.” He held out a hand but she didn’t take it, until he rolled his eyes and physically grabbed her, bony fingers easily encompassing her whole hand as he yanked her out of the room and down the hall.  
  
She was winded within seconds, struggling to keep up with his pace and lungs working overtime, with no nutrition to burn. And when her legs did give way, knees going out from under her as he pulled her down the stairs, he simply kept dragging her on the floor, ignoring her complaints and struggling and just sliding her across the dirty floor until they reached the main doors. She didn’t really even see what he did with the locks, just trying to pick herself up again. He did pause to give her a moment, but didn’t have much pity to spare for her exhaustion. His hands abruptly closed around her waist, and then she was being lifted up and slung over one bony shoulder in a rough fireman’s carry, complete with an open-palmed pop to her ass when she resisted him. With her draped over him, he set out across the flooded, muddy yard.  
  
“Hey!”  
  
“Stop squirmin’ around! Tryin’ to be a real gentleman here, fuck. Ow! God damnit, not in the ribs!”  
  
She had managed to kick him a little, but he gave her a warning shake. She craned her neck, but saw nothing but the backside of his dirty khakis. “What are you, a caveman?”  
  
“Well I’ll be, guess you do have some sass in you after all. Good, I like ‘em a little mouthier. With nice lips an’- Ow! Fucking shit, you kick me again and I swear to god, I will push you into the mud until your lungs are full up with leeches, got it?”  
  
She stopped kicking him, but only because she was distracted by a distorted and kind of upside-down view of the yard, and what looked like a silhouette of someone standing in front of a trailer. It looked a bit like a woman, though she couldn’t be sure. They were standing in the doorway, a thin stream of smoke trailing from a lit cigarette, and silent as the grave as they watched Lucas haul her across the clearing.  
  
“Wh-who is-”  
  
“Ain’t nobody. So don’t try screechin’ for help, won’t do you no good” he replied tersely, adjusting her over his shoulder. They passed by the lone figure soon enough, and ascended a wooden staircase as he used her butt to barge through another set of doors, into what was either a different building, or another part of their huge, sprawling estate. More doors, more halls, and then he paused before several much heavier, metal-grated doors where she heard him input keycodes, a loud buzz heard before he took her through.  
  
And then he was practically throwing her down onto a couch in what looked like an old den, with an outdated entertainment shelf from the 90s, complete with a VHS player and an old boombox, the whole room littered with videos and CD cases. Shoved into another corner was a pool table, although it was covered in papers and garbage, and a little kitchenette area, which was far from clean, but at least it didn’t look like the stains were blood.  
  
She sat up, watching him warily as he held up a finger, then dove for the kitchen counter and returned with a tray, grinning like a maniac as he set it down. She saw why after a moment. Spread across the plastic tray was a selection of the most phallic foods he could have found; hot dogs, corn dogs, peeled bananas, raw carrots, a raw eggplant…and just to drive the joke home, there was a pickle halfway through two slices of ham to resemble a lewd act, off on the side.  
  
“Hey, how do these make you feel, baby? You feel anything stirrin’ with interest, maybe?”  
  
She barely even gave him a ‘Really?’ look before she dove on the crude meal with both hands. If he wanted to make dick jokes with food, let him. At least she was finally eating something, crunching through bread and shoving sausages into her mouth without even caring what it might look like.  
  
“Dayum, girl, slow down. Thought you were supposed to be a real lady sort. First date and you’re gettin’ all nasty on me.”  
  
She picked up the pickle, looked directly at him, and bit it in two.  
  
He just went into another fit of snickering, and she was suddenly struck by how asinine this all was. Lucas was a murderer with a depraved sense of humor, who could talk about torture and mutilation like they were nothing. Yet here he was, giggling like a twelve year old because she was eating a hot dog in front of him. No matter how he jested or cracked smart remarks, he was dangerous. Dick jokes aside. She couldn’t, and wouldn’t, forget it. She had to be smart about this.  
  
“…Thanks,” she said, a little begrudgingly, slowing down a little as she chewed on the raw vegetables.  
  
“See? I ain’t the worst boyfriend. I got you someplace comfy, I got you fed, and hey, the ‘death by chocolate’ is still totally a menu option at this point. Won’t even taste it, I promise.” He pulled his hand out from behind his back, holding a chocolate bar that had clearly been re-wrapped.  
  
She felt her blood run a little cold, looking down at the remains of what she’d just eaten. “You…didn’t-”  
  
“Nah, just the chocolate. I mean, I thought about it, but it’d probably be too obvious if Evie came snooping around,” he admitted casually, before slowly lifting an arm up and moving to put it around her shoulder. “I was thinking, maybe a little gratitude blowjob, then I take you someplace real peaceful-”  
  
With food finally in her belly, she had a little energy, enough to push his arm away. She had to set a hard boundary, first of all, and that did not include his dick. “I’m not blowing you, and I’m not killing myself either!”  
  
“Fuck, ya try to be nice and look what it gets ya…Believe me, if it was up to me, it would just be a quick tire iron to the head. Fine, if you wanna do this the hard way-”  
  
“Why are you so scared? Her wheelchair can’t even get up here, can it? That old lady…” She frowned at him, scooting away to the other side of the sofa.  
  
He tutted, leaning back. “Nuh uh-uuuuh, see, that’s gonna have to come to a stop. You’re my girlfriend, so you can’t be avoiding me. Might as well get used to the idea.”  
  
“Is this some sort of arranged marriage thing? Your grandma sending you out to kidnap brides or…whatever this is?” she asked warily.  
  
“That thing ain’t my granny. Still figuring out what she is. But I know what she can do…Think of it as a big, elaborate, socially-retarded game of house. It’s like a little kid playing Barbies or whatever, like my sister and her pals used to do. You got your Barbie, you got your Ken, you got the rest of the family, and you mash ‘em together to make ‘em kiss and tell little stories. Ya know, playing around.” He picked up another carrot and the eggplant, pushing them against each other. “See, right now, she wants to make us kiss, so she’s gonna mash our heads together. And we gotta kiss, Vivee, or she’ll throw a tantrum and just rip our heads clean off.” There was a crack as the veggies were broken. “Trust me, I seen it. And I felt it. Heads are the worst t’grow back too, lemme tell you that right now.”  
  
“What… _are_ you? All of you?”  
  
“Me, I’m the smartest goddamn one in whatever room I’m in,” he smirked. “With a couple little enhancements, here or there. Some of it was given, some of it was taken, but I’m all me, baby. But you, you ain’t gonna be all you, not for long. Pretty soon, after Evie’s done with ya, you’ll be more like my old man and mama. If ya can even last that long, heh. She’s already in yer head and you just don’t know it.”  
  
“That lady? In the wheelchair?”  
  
“She is. Sometimes. And she’s gonna fuck with you, Vivee, in ways a good girl like you can’t imagine. So take it from your bestest boyfriend Lucas here, and eat…the damn…chocolate.” He held it out yet again, and looked irked when she pushed it away.  
  
“If you don’t want me here, then just let me go. I promise I won’t tell her. I’ll just go and not come back, or bother you-”  
  
“Thought you were s’posed to be smart too? ‘Cos that’s a fucking stupid suggestion right there, ain’t it? If you go gallavantin’ off, you either gonna go straight to the pigs, or get lost in the swamp and get got by the stuff out there. And who’s gonna get blamed? Me! For losin’ another of her toys. So you’re gonna stay here with me, and if you’re not gonna take my real generous offer now…then fine…Guess we’re gonna draw this out. Welcome to the beginning of the end of your shit life.”  
  
He cracked open a soda and started guzzling, a stream of liquid escaping out the side of his mouth and oozing down his chin and dripping to his lap. Disgusting. Vivee was quiet once more, pretending to pick at her nails as she went over her options. Even if it didn’t sound like there were very many. If she hadn’t personally watched his broken face slowly knit itself together, she might have simply just assumed it was all a crazy lie. And she still wasn’t sure about why he was so afraid of the old woman, especially compared to the mental cases that were his parents. Nothing here made sense, but at least she finally had some food in her belly, and once he took her back to her room, she could start formulating a plan of escape…  
  
Instead, he finished his soda and turned to her with another leering smile. “Well! As long as you’re here, maybe you could help me with a lil’ project I’m workin’ on?”  


* * *

  
  
He’d shoved her into the room, thrown the chocolate bar in after her, and left.  
  
It was pretty dreary, all things considered, especially after being called a ‘Holiday Party Bonanza’. There was a fake Christmas tree in the center, surrounded by presents, and wilted, drooping garlands all around the doors and boarded windows. There was a stuffed mouse, some cookies and milk that were both green with mold, a puzzle board with the names of the reindeer, and a headband with antlers that she refused to put on.  
  
The intercom system buzzed to life again. “Since you ain’t busy, figure you’d help me in a little dry test-run for another party room!”  
  
“You have more than one party room?” she asked aloud, trying the metal door again. It didn’t budge.  
  
“Maybe I really like parties, Vivee, ya ever think of that? And who doesn’t enjoy a good party, right! Well, you seem about as lively as one of them corpses out back, so maybe you wouldn’t understand after all. Would ya at least put on the hat so I can get some pictures of us havin’ fun?”  
  
“No thank you.”  
  
“You’re a goddamn downer. Wasn’t even going to activate the antlers this time. Anyway, I’ve turned off a few of the more…exciting bits, but let’s see how you progress through it. Oh, just because it won’t kill ya, doesn’t mean it won’t huuuurt. So just read the card on the table there and get started, g’wan. If you can get through this, maybe I’ll give you a nice big Christmas present! Aaaaand…Fuck, hang on. I’m gonna be right back. You get started with that card there, hold on!”  
  
There was a screech of feedback, and then silence. She couldn’t be entirely sure he was really gone, but she took the chance, ignoring the card and starting to go through the room piece by piece. Like that time she’d been invited to one of those ‘escape room’ challenges, this seemed to be a more messed up version of one of those. There were definitely signs of traps…when she inspected the tree a little closer, there was a large scorch mark emanating from under the decorative blanket. Plus the burns and  dents and scratch marks all over the walls. She didn’t dare shake any of the presents, but an examination of the wiring on the tree saw a trail of cords leading into the wall, with no plug access.  
  
The reindeer name puzzle, she wasn’t entirely sure about, but a closer glance at the garland it was attached to belied that whatever trigger was inside, it would have to be attached to the rest of the mechanism…by the garland coming out of the side. She hadn’t noticed it earlier. The garlands weren’t just draped, they’d been set up strategically.  
  
Okay…she was beginning to get an idea of the workings of this puzzle.  
  
She found a discarded empty can from one of Lucas’s sodas in a corner, apparently forgotten, and practically lit up. This would be perfect. She just needed to get things a little more in order, that was all. Maybe she still had time…  


* * *

  
  
By the time the intercom buzzed to life again, her captor sounded absolutely enraged.  
  
“What the f- Vivian! What the shit’ve you done, you crazy bitch?! God damnit, _stop_!”  
  
Vivian did not stop. She had thrown the cookies and milk away and had moved the table into the next room, propping the Christmas tree at an angle against it. The Christmas garland had been torn down and laid end to end, wrapping around the Christmas tree and then trailing off into the next room…Where Vivian had pulled apart the plush toy mouse, thrown away the clue inside it, and had ripped its stuffing out. The suicide chocolate had been pulled out of its wrapper, and she was rubbing the mess on the bottom of the soda can as quickly as she could, the waxy goop steadily sandpapering away the aluminum finish.  
  
“I step away for five fucking minutes and you wreck my shit? D’you know how much time it took to set all this up! Wait, what the fuck are you doin’! I’m coming down there!”  
  
Sweating now, she positioned the can so the concave surface caught the light of the floodlight hanging overhead and reflected it back, aiming it at the pile of cotton. Hopefully with the intensity of the lights it wouldn’t take long…In fact, it had better fucking hurry. Narrowing her eyes at it, she caught the faintest wisp of gray vapor starting to smoke from it, at the same time a heavy door slammed down the hallway. Tying to use sheer force of will to set it alight, she glanced back hurriedly as another door slammed and Lucas’s cursing could be heard getting closer and closer. If he got here before it-  
  
Flame! The cotton caught alight and she cupped one hand around it. No time to wait for it to get stronger, practically cradling it as she transferred it from the dirty ground, and gently placed it on the very end of the string of garlands.  
  
“Vivian! You little shit!”  
  
Lucas was just outside, probably inputting the code from the doors. Before he could, the black fuse inside the garland caught the flame, and it sparked. As any good fuse did, it burned rapidly, the flow of red and yellow sparks traveling rapidly down the line, around the doorway, into the other room, past the presents, up into the tree, and into the ‘lights’.  
  
“Vivi-”  
  
There was a booming crash from inside the party room, followed by a wave of heat. Lucas cursed again, struggling to get the door open. And when he did, he saw the woman’s foot disappear around the corner as she ran into the tree’s detonation area. She made a run for it, into the experiment room where the tree and its ‘gifts’ had exploded, most of the tree ‘aimed’ as much as she could control it, towards the boarded window. The presents, which were originally meant to be a fun guessing game, had also all detonated, and sent cascades of thumbtacks, nails, ball bearings, and deadly shrapnel all over the place, sending her skittering across them where they had scattered across the floor.  
  
The barricaded window had been blown to pieces, the glass busted out from the force of the explosion within. She desperately pried at the remains of the boards, pulling it loose from the nail and throwing it aside. Not ideal, but at least enough to squeeze through. Which she did, splinters scraping over her belly and her limbs cut up rather brutally amongst the jagged shards of glass still embedded in the frame.  
  
A hand grabbed at her foot as Lucas tried to drag her back in, but she was already through and sent a kick his way, losing her shoe but sending her sprawling free on top of the roof outside. It creaked and groaned under her weight, but she threw out both arms to balance herself and went wobbling along it as best she could. It was a little too high up for her to jump, but adrenaline surged through her, heart pounding as she teetered on the very edge, spotting a lower roof on a building nearby. If she could jump onto that, she might be able to make it safely to the yard without breaking anything…  
  
She vaguely wished she’d had time to digest her food a little more, winded and huffing and puffing as she skidded to a stop at the edge of the roof, shingles flying loose under her and bare foot squelching with blood from her torn-open knee. She couldn’t hear Lucas anymore, couldn’t hear anything but her own blood thundering between her ears. Had to make it to the next building, down to the ground…then she just had to run. She could just run, and find a road, or civilization, or literally anything else but this.  
  
She backed up, took a breath, and then went running forward, bending her knees and launching off towards the-  
  
“What are you doing, Vivian?”  
  
A little girl in a black dress, with stringy black hair, was standing where she was about to land. She couldn’t have been there before, and had just appeared out of thing air. Still, Vivee shrieked and tried to twist in the air to avoid her. She swung out both arms to catch the girl, only then the girl was gone and her face was hitting the tin roof, hitting it with enough force to break her neck. Or maybe her back. Or maybe her nose and teeth? Something snapped, she heard that clearly enough, and with a crash, she went straight through the weakened, rusted metal of the roof, falling through with a cut-off scream.  
  
Her head spun, vision going wobbly and unfocused. Moonlight streamed through the gaping hole in the roof where she had just fallen, through the jagged and broken shards of tin. At least she’d landed in something relatively soft, a pile of musty hay. Her whole body still radiated with pain though, groaning and coughing up a mouthful of dust and bits of straw. She just had to get up and keep running, that was it. Find a door out of…a barn? It seemed to be a barn, or it definitely smelled like one.  
  
Holding her head, she tried to move. Whining aloud, she hissed and bit her lip to bleeding again as her lower body clearly did not want to respond properly. She must have hit her back pretty hard. Wobbling on legs like a new born calf, she didn’t even make it out of the hay pile without stumbling, falling to all fours as she looked around frantically. If she couldn’t run, maybe she could hide. Maybe crawl back into the hay, or find somewhere else in the barn?  
  
The dust burned her eyes and she rubbed wildly at her face, and after blinking away the pain, suddenly everything darkened on the edges and the little girl was standing in the barn too, staring at her with those same blue eyes as the others. It must have been the same little voice she’d heard in the house, or had dreamed of a few times…but something was wrong with her. Even more wrong than the rest of the Bakers. She just radiated wrongness from every aspect of her, and Vivian froze before her like a deer in the headlights.  
  
“Vivian?” the little girl said again, voice as sweet and poisonous as antifreeze, “What are you doing out here? Are you hiding from Lucas?”  
  
Eyes still wide, Vivee just nodded, swallowing audibly.  
  
“Why?” the girl asked. “You’re supposed to like each other!” She sounded strangely put out, a scowl growing on her little face. “The last one was really pretty but she wasn’t very smart, and that got boring. You’re really smart, but not very pretty, so this was supposed to be better.”  
  
Well that one stung a bit, but no time to be offended now.  
  
“I-I’m sorry. I guess I just got scared?”  
  
The girl did not seem interested in her apology, still unhappy. “Scared? Why?”  
  
Why? She could have listed a thousand reasons why she was scared. But she had a distinct feeling that this little girl didn’t care. Or worse, would have only been enthused by it. Coughing a bit, a piece of hay still stuck to her lip, she just shook her head. “I-I was just…I was just…I’m sorry…I was…”  
  
The girl’s eyes narrowed down at her, and there was that same skull-cracking pain from her dream, lancing between her eyes and sending her front half tumbling back onto the dirty ground. She would have thrashed, if her bottom half was working right. From somewhere else in the barn there was a hushed wet sound, then a low gurgle. Something was moving around…not quite walking, more like shuffling, or dragging. A wounded barn animal, maybe? Or…no, it didn’t sound like an animal…Ugh! What was that smell? More mold?  
  
She collapsed onto her side, head propped by one arm, and saw a shape rise up out of the darkness. Human-like, but not human…Too large, and lumpy, and covered in sloughing black substances that oozed and dripped, pouring from an open mouth near the top of its ‘head’ where rows of crooked sharp teeth lined its pitted jaws. Another shape rose up, and then another, shambling towards her. Monsters. Literal, from-her-nightmares, monsters. Molded monsters.  
  
She was pretty sure she was screaming, and synapses were making her legs kick in probably humorous ways. And then the barn door slid open as blue moonlight fell across her, and Lucas was there. He blinked, saw the Molded and the girl, and then quickly lifted his hands and went to back out again.  
  
“Hey, Evie! Didn’t see you were, uh-”  
  
Evie? Evie was this horrible little girl too? A daughter, maybe, or maybe…she was just the same as the old lady from dinner…?  
  
Evie scowled and folded her arms. “Lucas, she said she got scared. Did you do something? Did you put her in another one of your dumb rooms?”  
  
The man was reduced to apologies and sweetness once more, and if she had any wherewithal left in her, Vivian might have gotten somewhat of a kick out of him being so dominated by a literal child. As it was, she was still twisting and drooling in pain and panic on the barn floor, eyes wide and staring at the monsters surrounding her.  
  
“Now Eveline, it wasn’t like any of that, now, I assure ya. I turned all the bad stuff off so she wouldn’t get hurt, but she cheated and activated some stuff she wasn’t s’posed ta. Just got a bit slippery and went out the window. I’ll fix it. Er, but I understand if you wanna get rid of her. Breakin’ the rules and all. But uh, looks like you were just about to be busy, I’ll just head out-”  
  
Fucking bastard, throwing her under the bus. She wished she had something to throw at him. At least Eveline, godawful and unnatural a creature that she was, gave him a bit more what-for.  
  
“You were supposed to watch movies and do date things! You said you wanted a girlfriend! Don’t you like her?”  
  
Sweat was dripping off his temples now, as greasy and wet as the rest of him. “She’s great! Hey! Real firecracker, that one. Right, Vivee? Just uh…ya know, girls and dating and stuff, can all get real complicated. And sometimes they slip out of a window and run off. Uh…playing hard to get?”  
  
Evie looked at him, then down to Vivian. The Molded around them paused, still groaning and shuffling as they waited for her order. “This is so stupid! Lucas, pick her up.”  
  
His arms were wrapping around her at once, snatching her up by the waist and holding her against him when her lower half flopped rather pitifully in his grip. The man’s cocksure, warped confidence was nowhere to be found. He stank of nervous fear, just like her, even if he was holding up better. “Yeah, yeah I got ‘er.”  
  
“Vivian, give him a kiss.”  
  
Her eyes widened and rolled to look up at him just as he looked down to her. She didn’t want to kiss him. She really, really didn’t want to kiss him. But her body was obeying before she could even stop it. Shaking hands reached up to take his bristled jaw, his lips slackening and opening a little in response, and then she reached up and pressed her lips to his. They were chapped and cold and he tasted like soda and bad breath. She probably didn’t taste much better. But she kissed him, because she was supposed to. Because she had to. And Lucas was kissing her back, adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed hard beneath her touch.  
  
“Bite off her tongue and eat it, Lucas. Then bite off your own and feed it to her.”  
  
Vivee’s eyes went wide and she tried to withdraw, but something was holding her still. It wasn’t even Lucas’s arms, or fear. Something was holding her in place like something akin to paralysis. Eveline's command had taken hold and she could not fight her order. Lucas lifted both brows, then gained a bit of a tired thousand-yard stare. He barely even looked at her, his sticky tongue prodding into her mouth and pulling it into his. Why was she doing this? Why couldn’t she stop? She felt him position her tongue against his bottom teeth, flattening it out with his.  
  
To anyone else it might have looked like an awkward session of making out. Just two lovers caught in a passionate embrace, with his arms around her and her tongue in his mouth.  
  
And then he bit down.  


* * *

  
  
She trailed after him in utter silence, save for the steady drip of blood flowing down her chin and spattering the mud. There was so much blood, overflowing her mouth and oozing down her entire jaw and front, her chin and chest completely red with it, rivulets flowing down and pooling where she was hugging herself with both arms. She didn’t try to run or fight or protest, meekly following after him with her head down and saying nothing. She was just trying not to think of it, being a cannibal…with that little bit of severed human muscle somewhere down in her belly, sitting heavy in her stomach, licking her insides…  
  
Lucas walked ahead, his mouth also dripping red, hoodie soaked with it, and looking none too thrilled with the night’s happenings. He didn’t bother to look back at her, even when he heard her stumbling, her pace still unsteady from her cracked spine.  
  
He led them back through the side door with the security codes, past rooms filled with electronics and spare parts and what looked like bits and pieces of ripped-apart mannequins, but she was too numb to even acknowledge how creepy that was. She paused only when she saw a half-open door with the glow of more computers inside, and glanced up to see the screens filled with pictures of her…from her social media pages and online articles and school newspaper. There she was, accepting awards and partying with friends and volunteering at the animal shelter, and a larger picture of her smiling and holding up her degree. She stopped, staring at the sight with her mouth still dripping red.  
  
“Glllghuhh uuhgh!” Lucas slurred from ahead, spurring her into movement again.  
  
Back in his filthy entertainment den, he rather brusquely threw her down onto the sofa, seemingly caring nothing for more blood stains and filth on them both. She sat placidly and did not move, not even when he returned with a length of metal chain and a handcuff, bolting one side to the wall and snapping the other around her ankle. It seemed like he really, really wished he could say something. Probably to scream at her and berate her or blame her, but he could do little besides make little noises and spit up more bubbles of blood. It was hard to talk when they had just been forced to consume each other’s severed tongues.  
  
Clearly frustrated, he brought one fist slamming into the cushions right next to her, making her jump and shrink down some. But he didn’t strike her, merely yanking on her leg a bit to make sure the chain was secured. Then he leaned down and brought his bleeding face almost right up to hers, pale blue eyes shining eerily in their wide-open stare. She met it only briefly before looking down again.  
  
Pointing one finger at her, he prodded her hard in the shoulder, then pointed to the sofa, the chain, and the wall. He may not have been able to talk, but the message was clear.  
  
_Don’t try to run. Don’t try to fight. Don’t fuck this up._  
  
_You. Stay. Here._


	3. Chapter 3

She awoke to a pounding headache and the sound of faint music, rubbing her forehead unhappily where she lay collapsed on the sofa. Peeling open her eyes, she was greeted by the couch’s cushions stained completely red, and her hand practically flew to her jaw…Dried blood was still flecked there, but she had a tongue again. She could feel it, prodding it around her teeth and even sticking it out and looking at it a bit-crossed eyed before poking it a few times. Ow. Definitely her tongue.  
  
She sat up, and a radiating soreness from her legs announced that she had also regained feeling and healed the nerve damage to her spine. Strange. Granted, her degree wasn’t in medicine. But spines and tongues weren’t supposed to grow back overnight, she knew that much. She was a little sore and still very hungry and thirsty, but she was whole. Apparently Lucas wasn’t the only one affected by this…whatever it was. But maybe it wasn’t wise to question a good thing for now, at least not yet.  
  
There was just enough slack in the chain around her ankle to reach the sink, though not enough to press her lips to it, and she awkwardly scooped water into her hand to bring it quickly to her open mouth, ignoring the smell from the stacks of dirty dishes nearby. But the cupboards were just out of reach and she didn’t see any more food for her. Lucas had apparently been ordered not to harm her too badly, but she could not help but wonder if he was the sort of man to let her starve to death.  
  
Or, he was almost certainly the type of man who would gladly let her starve to death, but perhaps Eveline was keeping him from that as well. He certainly didn’t seem happy about it.  
  
It really was awful music, some sort of screaming death metal electronic something-or-other with no rhythm, barely music at all. It was coming from the closed door of his computer room, which meant he must have been inside. What was she supposed to do now? Neither of them wanted her to be there, and his mood was probably not helped by him having to bite off his own tongue after their ill-fated chase last night. Unlikely that she’d want to draw attention to herself if it could be avoided.  
  
At least the chain gave her a bit of space to roam, enough to sort through the stacks and stacks of outdated entertainment scattered around the den. There were old CDs and VHS tapes, even a few cassette tapes. There didn’t seem to be any pattern or organization to them either. One stack of tapes could have a kung-fu movie, an 80s slasher film, a Christian children’s cartoon about talking lambs, and a romantic comedy, all jumbled together. At a loss, she blew the dust off an old copy of The Sound of Music, and slid it into the player.  
  
It was nearly finished by the time Lucas made his appearance, clad in yet another hoodie, swinging open the door and barely giving her a glance as he began rummaging around his kitchen. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched him warily, taking a box of Kooky Klown Puffs and pouring them into a bowl…before simply eating them dry with a spoon, probably because he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who could keep up with the concept of milk freshness. He stood in the kitchen, chomping on cereal and watching the musical play on his TV with an almost puzzled air, before snorting and shaking his head.  
  
“The fuck’s that?” He upnodded to the screen, cheeks bulging with cereal.  
  
“It’s The Sound of Music. From the 60s, I think.”  
  
He rolled his bulging eyes dramatically, speaking around his food. “Jesus tittyfucking christ, it’s almost impressive at this point. Every time I think you can’t get any more lame. You like _musicals_.”  
  
“What’s wrong with them?”  
  
“Yeah, I’ll make a list of reasons for that one later. Hey. Looks like your tongue grew back if you’re talkin’. So, here’s the perfect chance for us to talk.” Putting the remains of his cereal bowl aside, he approached her, standing and blocking the screen. “First off…Good morning, baby! Welcome home! Now, you’re gonna tell me who the fuck you’re working for.”  
  
“Working…for?” she echoed, squinting at him and drawing her legs up into the couch, away from him. She didn’t like his tone.  
  
“They sent you in to fucking spy on me? Set you up with that other girl in the hotel, maybe? See if one of you would survive long enough to gain access to Evie and get her for yourself?”  
  
Vivee stared at him blankly. “…What?”  
  
“Did a little research on you, ‘sweetie’.”  
  
“You mean when you had all my pictures up the other night?”  
  
“Looked you up. Majored in Biochemistry up in some hoity-toity school in Massachusetts, award-winnin’ little priss, smooches puppies and kittens in her spare time? Likes musicals? Fucking _sickeningly_ wholesome or some shit? Or was that just a part of your cover story, all those photos of you livin’ your life, just to throw me off the trail? Heh…Hehehe, did they fuckin’ expect me to just believe that a random biochemist girl would just wander her ass in here by chance?” He leaned forward, until she could smell the cereal on his breath when he snarled at her. “Ya know, Evie just said I couldn’t really kill ya. But I’ll tell you right now, I got ways of making things real unpleasant for you. Won’t be able to make it back to report to your little friends at The Connections after what I’ll do to you, babycakes...”  
  
“…What? What are you talking about?”  
  
“You studied biochem and just found yourself down here? Two biochemist ladies waltzing in here at the same time? You must think I’m real stupid…”  
  
“Hannah?”  
  
“Read up on her a bit too. Both of ya in the same sciences. Weird, ain’t it?” He narrowed his eyes at her.  
  
“Weird? Hannah and I were roommates in college together! You kidnapped us coming back from New Orleans!” she reminded him, more fiercely. “You _murdered_ my friend!”  
  
He almost growled. “Only killed one of ya, though. Maybe they banked on at least one of you living so they could get another line of access to Evie-”  
  
“Access? To an old lady spooky ghost girl who…What is she? Why did she _do_ that?!” Her voice broke. “She made me _eat_ your tongue. And then she made me _kiss_ you again. I didn’t want that, or this. Or you. Or whatever she is. I don’t…want…” She thinned her lips, forcing her breath to slow. No, panicking wouldn’t help. Hyperventilating wouldn’t help. She just needed to keep calm.  
  
He eyed her very carefully, strangely silent enough that she could almost hear his brain whirring like the cold and calculating machine he was, somewhere underneath the twitchiness and paranoia and shitty attitude. Rather petulantly, he snapped aloud, “Prove it.”  
  
“You can’t prove a negative. Or maybe you can, around here…Everything is fucked up.” Her comment seemed fairly banal compared to everything she had seen so far, but she was cracking a little around the seams, rubbing at her jaw and still very aware of the presence of her regrown tongue. “And now I’m fucked up too.”  
  
As usual, pity and understanding were in very short supply. “Fuck, don’t start blubberin’ now. I warned ya that Evie was gonna fuck with ya, that’s just part n’ parcel of the whole thing. So you had to eat a tongue, tough titties. That ain’t nothing compared to what she’s gonna do when she gets bored. So try and remember that the next time she’s gooping up your mind, that your lovin’ boyfriend offered you a way out and you shit all over it.”  
  
“Did she make you this way?”  
  
“She makes everyone this way, an’ that’s if she likes you. Before she came along, my family-”  
  
“Was she the one who made you an _asshole_?”  
  
Immediately she regretted saying it. It was going to make an already bad situation worse, it was going to anger him more, she’d been raised better than that, and conflict was never her strong suit…She clammed up at once, making herself extremely small, and quickly mumbling a low, “Sorry. Sorry…”  
  
He looked down at her and guffawed. “Well gawdamn, there she goes again, mouthin’ off.”  
  
“Stressed. A lot…Sorry…I’m sorry.”  
  
“Almost got my blood pumpin’ a bit there, Vivee. But let’s not get distracted, here. So, all that shit about you with the biochemistry major, that’s all you? Says you were researchin’ pharmaceuticals?” He received a nod and continued. “Huh. Might come in handy. You ever handled anything t’do with something like say…mold?”  
  
She frowned at the question, and frowned even more when he suddenly pushed her aside on the couch and sat down beside her, staring expectantly. She found the remote to at least be able to look at something else besides his creepy blue eyes, starting to rewind the tape. “Mold? Like the creepy black kind or just regular mold? That’s more on the antibiotic side of things. I had some classes that did have fungus and mold mentioned, but those focused on pathogenic molds, or treating mycotoxins…but that wasn’t really the core of any of my research-”  
  
“But you speak the language?”  
  
“I...suppose? I really just do papers and gruntwork, recording clinical data and such. I still need to get a doctorate in-”  
  
“Yeah, shuttup fer a second,” he snapped, leaning back in the couch and thinking again.  
  
His leg bounced nervously, twitchy as ever, and he chewed on the inside of his cheek. She got up to go put another tape in, but found a scrawny-looking arm blocking her way. Even then, it seemed he still needed to think and bounce and twitch for an other few minutes before he turned to her with a grin. “You might be an absolute shit girlfriend, but I’m thinking you and I might be able to work a little something out anyways. I’m not sayin’ I’ll be granting you full Casa De Lucas privileges, and I’m gonna keep a real eye on you. But I think you and I might be able to make a deal…right, _partner_?”  


* * *

  
  
She had been suspicious, and she had been right. It was an awfully crappy ‘partnership’.  
  
She would get fed, and in return she would proofread and explain some of the bits and pieces of documents he would sometimes fetch for her. Most of it was sharpie’d out, but she could tell from the little bits and pieces she got that this was not Lucas-level writing. Lucas was smart in a dangerous and sociopathic savant kind of way, but not highly educated. The language on the papers was clinical and analytic, and in such upper echelons of science that she had to admit that she was stumped…not helped by the fact that he’d blotted out almost everything she might have used to figure out what it all meant, or who had sent it to him.  
  
She spent the next three days chained to the couch, with notes and papers scattered on the coffee table in front of her, and was only let loose when Lucas unhooked her chain to take her to the toilet. Luckily, her captor mostly left her be, only occasionally baiting her into short conversations or giving her food in exchange for bits of paper with her notes. He was usually shut up in the other room with his computers, or gone altogether.  
  
It was terribly boring, but at least she wasn’t being tortured and eaten alive? She could work with it.  
  
She sat cross-legged on the sofa that had become her world, hunched over a clipboard while she munched on knockoff brand Spaghetti-Os out of the can, a tape of Dirty Dancing playing with the sound turned low. The papers were talking about Subject E again, like they often did. Most if it was blotted out, but Subject E’s infection was taking over Experiment 14 in a more rapid onslaught than usual. 14 showed rapid mental degeneration and molding capability…with something blotted out happening by Day 3, time 2:25 PM. Which was…she did the math quickly…a full 14% quicker than Experiment 12, showing an uptick of 3.3% steady since Experiment 7, except for that utter failure with Experiment 12…  
  
She needed a break. She needed a damn break. She needed to do something besides watch shitty movies and do baffling paperwork and worry. And she was all alone for now. Lucas was out, Evie hadn’t bothered with her, and she was sequestered away from the other Bakers. Maybe…she could do with a tiny bit of stress relief, and a sorely-needed bit of ‘me time’.  
  
She put her processed pasta Os aside, laid back on the couch with a pillow fluffed under her head, and unbuttoned her pants. Slipping a hand inside her panties, she found it a bit hard to maneuver to her favorite position…so she shuffled down the top of her jeans and her underwear with it, sliding a hand down between her thighs and hoping he wouldn’t walk in and find her like this.  
  
That was better…That was what she needed, just something all for herself. Spreading her legs a bit more, pants strung between her knees, she began working her fingers steadily. She just needed something to take her mind off everything, and soon the little tingles of pleasure were spreading through her and helping her forget. She pretended that she was back in her own room in her own apartment, on top of her fluffy comforter, with the stuffed penguin she used as a pillow most of the time. She was back home and the lights were down low and soft music without screams was playing from her laptop. And she was free to fantasize about anything she wanted…  
  
She began dreaming up little snippets of her favorite things. Sex scenes from her favorite shows, long-winded prose about lovemaking from the dirty books she kept under her bed, and vague but sufficient memories of the pictures of hot men she kept buried several folders deep on her computer. Her fingers worked faster and faster, until little slick wet noises could be heard over the movie, her breath quickening along with them.  
  
Strong arms holding her and keeping her safe, pushing his fingers into her, maybe followed by a nice, thick cock. It had been a while, sure, but that was something you never forgot or stopped wanting. He’d be gentle at first but then…maybe just a little rough when she was comfortable, where she needed it. It would be nice, having the warm weight of another body on top of her, and inside her…  
  
_…And he’d smile down at her with that leering grin, red shadows in his nearly translucent pitted eyesockets, his cheekbones sharp as razors, his eyes too wide and too blue, and his voice with fucking ridiculous stupid accent, asking if he could make her cum…_  
  
Fuck, WHAT?!  
  
She nearly fell off the couch as she came, and it was probably the most distressing and confusing orgasm she’d ever had. She had not wanted to think of Lucas Baker, especially in such a vulnerable moment. But now his visage had seared itself into her brain. It was probably some form of Stockholm Syndrome or imprinting or some other term, as best she could tell. Their relationship couldn’t really be called a ‘bond’ in any sense of the word, but she was still trapped in this awful place, and so far he had been her only companion. It was probably just the results of an overstressed mind, maybe some kind of psychological thing. Probably…best not to think on that too much…  
  
She sheepishly wiped her hands off on her pants, cheeks burning as she pulled them back up and re-buttoned everything. Maybe it was time for her to get back to work, anyway. Pulling her Spaghetti-Os can back onto her lap, she retrieved the stack of papers and her notebook, and continued documenting the disjointed numbers and names he had given her. As boring as it was, at least she could focus on that instead of the lingering memory of his smile, where he had invaded her personal fantasies.  
  
Maybe she was suffering from her own form of mental degradation here. How many days had it been? Five? Six? Over a week? She couldn’t be sure. So she made her own note, in her own private shorthand, amongst her research papers.  
  
Subject V. 3-4 days after tongue regrowth, late afternoon: possibly 5:00 or later. Intrusive thoughts. Mild. ???  
  
Maybe it wouldn’t do her any good in this madhouse, but even just writing down some evidence of her trials made her feel a little better. She was down on paper, she had existed, and maybe she could keep a better handle on things if she tracked her on progression…or regression, or whatever this was going to turn out to be. Whatever Evie had done to her, or what Lucas was going to do to her, she would try to write it all down.  
  
And if she did die, or join Hannah as one of those things, or suffer some gruesome fate down the line…maybe someone would find her name here in these papers, and take it out of this place forever…  
  
She got back to work.  


* * *

  
  
She wasn’t sure how long she’d been at the Baker estate by now. Time passed strangely even when she slept. Lucas came and went and she kept working.  
  
It had gotten late. She heard footsteps coming up the stairs, the click of the security keys, and the buzz of clearance, followed by the rattling metal door that both imprisoned her and kept her safe. Lucas staggered inside, his skull half collapsed on one side and his face with it, his ribs popped out of place and one arm hanging limply while the other was holding a red and black soaked beach towel to his wounds. Vivee cringed a bit but did not move to help him.  
  
“Long day?” she asked innocently, as though he was simply getting home from work.  
  
“Fugghh yoouu…” he grumbled in reply, rolling his dislocated jaw somewhat back into place. “And fuck today, and my old man. S’not my fault the new Molded didn’t turn right! Deluded old fart was trying to chop me in two so I fucked off…God damn, he’s always faster than ya think. Move. MOVE.”  
  
Without warning he went to slump onto the couch next to her, while she scrambled to move things away from him. “Don’t bleed on the papers, I just finished them!”  
  
“I’m gonna bleed wherever the fuck I want. S’my couch.” He sounded more tired than vindictive, and let her shift around until he was flopped on his back with his legs thrown over her lap, pulling a pillow over his half-chopped-apart head. She was pretty sure she could see the sickening gray-pink of brain matter underneath, webbed with black mold. “Ugh, my head.”  
  
“Do you want me to write down how long it takes you to heal it this time?”  
  
“Nah, do some like…girlfriend shit.”  
  
“Uh…”  
  
“Relax, Vivee, it’s not like I’m telling you to fuck me,” he said, and his words brought the blood rushing to her cheeks and ears as memories of her earlier off-the-rails fantasies came flooding back. Luckily he wasn’t looking at her. “But, shit, rub my back or something. Creature comforts or whatever. I’ll give ya a snack cake.”  
  
“All right…” She didn’t share the fondness of the processed pastries like he did, but it was food, and chemical choco flavoring was a little close to actual chocolate. Although she wasn’t really sure about the part where she was supposed to give him a massage. Their few times where they had actually made contact had been…less than pleasant. Mostly downright traumatizing, really. Maybe as long as she didn’t have to really touch him, it would…Okay, he was pulling off his hoodie and t-shirt. Okay. Oh, good. Fine.  
  
Lucas shucked away the stained clothes with a groan, revealing a sickly pale expanse of back with ridged vertebrae and bony ribs, although the left side was bearing the marks of the Father Baker’s ax, his ribs a scattered mess inside. “Mind th’ bits there.”  
  
“I don’t really do this, I probably won’t be very good.”  
  
“Prob’ly not.”  
  
Asshole. She frowned at him as he shifted awkwardly on the suddenly very cramped couch and went to drape himself atop her thighs, burying his mangled face into a pillow. This was really too close for comfort, but she prodded at the nearly translucent white skin of his back, the blue and green veins spiderwebbing just beneath. One finger dented into his skin, and he tensed a little strangely, posture changing to something more wary. He didn’t seem to be a touchy-feely sort, nor someone who would be used to anything innocent or affectionate. Which made it a bit odd that he had requested it now.  
  
“Tell me if it hurts?” She flattened her fingertips into his skin and began to very hesitantly rub them. A vague thought reared in her head that she basically had him prone on her lap and at her mercy, and that she could reach into his ribcage and start snapping things. But…no, why would she do that? Where had that thought even come from? She pulled her hand away from where it had started reaching for his wounded side, returning to his spine as she pressed both palms to his back and continued stroking them up and down.  
  
It took a bit before he really relaxed, but when he did, he went positively boneless atop her, almost melting over her legs. She wasn’t even sure how he could breathe, face down in the cushion. But she just continued moving her hands, feeling the heaving bones of his ribs beneath the thin stretch of pale skin, pressing over the bony knobs of his spine, and down to his painfully thin, scrawny middle. A strange shudder went through him as she dug her knuckles into the muscles beneath, and he groaned aloud in a way that sort of unnerved her.  
  
“I finished those papers you wanted,” she said in a conversational way. Maybe while his defenses were down and he was slightly less unpleasant, she could actually talk to him a bit. “You can turn them in…Also, can I ask you a question?”  
  
“Good,” he muttered gruffly into the sofa. “And you can try. Don’t try to fuckin’ butter me up, though, I’m wise to that shit.”  
  
“What did you do before this? Before Evie?  What were you?”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“I don’t know. I’m bored. Making conversation.” She pressed her palms flat to his back and dug them into an upwards stroke.  
  
“Hrrm. Was an electrician. Invented a few things, too. Got a few patents, was hoping to make enough to get out of this shitty town and go somewhere better. Dunno where. Didn’t matter in the end, after that boat crashed in that storm.”  
  
“I’m gonna crack your back a little,” She said, and did just that. He groaned again, and she wished he would stop that. But even idle conversation was progress. “I was going to guess something with machines or electric lines. The way you put stuff together. I think you would have made a good engineer.”  
  
He snorted a laugh. “What did I say about trying to butter me up, Viv? Besides. Doesn’t matter what coulda been. I didn’t have no fancy schoolin’ or education that you did…But that boat runnin’ aground is the best thing that’s ever happened to this shitty family. Ain’t no school can teach you what we got here, and I’m the only one who knows it. Here, lemme see the papers you been workin’ on.”  
  
He rolled onto his back, smearing black goop across the blanket, and boldly rested his scruffy, half-broken head on her thighs as he read over her documentation. She tried not to look down into his fractured skull.  
  
“Woooo-wee, don’t this look all official. Heh, you shoulda seen their faces when I started turning these in. Didn’t take me so serious before, did they? You just word the experiments in a fancier way and do all the fancy math to impress them,” he said a little bitterly, before twisting on her lap and smirking up at her. “Evie’s got shit taste in girls, but at least I got a nice secretary out of it. Shame you’re not the hot kind.”  
  
She looked away, back to the television and her musicals. Asshole. Stupid asshole. She never should have bothered trying to be nice.  
  
“…Oh jesus, I was just joking,” he grumbled after a moment, “Bitches get so fucking _sensitive_ about everything.”  
  
He pulled himself up off her, leaving a nice big stain on the couch and on her sleeping blanket. Grunting and holding onto his wounded side, he knelt and began digging through the cupboards, soon coming up with a little box. Pulling a chocolate cake snack pack out of it, he tossed it onto the couch where she was sulking, before starting to limp his way back towards his computer room.  
  
There was a thud on his skull as something impacted with the back of his head, bouncing and rattling onto the ground, as she hurled the cakes right back at him.  
  
He whirled around, narrowing his eyes at her, and found her glaring too.  
  
“Hey! Fuck you!”  
  
“Fuck _you_!”  
  
The door slammed between them.


	4. Chapter 4

“What was the time?”  
  
“Got it all on the clock official-like, woooo baby. Even popped him out of the drawer a few times to take some beauty shots. Implanted this one on the inside, started comin’ out the mouth and nose and ears, probably the ass too. Like, orifices n’ whatnot. Ya wanna see the photos?”  
  
“Absolutely not,” she said sternly, “Just give me the data and I’ll write it up…and I know you’re holding up the photos right now. I’m not looking.”  
  
He rolled his eyes and slid them back into the envelope, tossing it back onto the coffee table that had become her office and home. She was still writing everything down, scribbling away before pausing and rubbing at the red mark where she had been holding it too long. Lucas snickered at her, then propped his knees back over her lap to make it harder for her, sprawled out on her couch and playing around on his phone as he waited.  
  
“This would go a lot faster if you would get me a computer,” she grouched, shoving his legs to an angle where she could lean over them. “And a desk. And my own sofa. And a room.”  
  
“Sorry, no can do. Nothing to spare.”  
  
“You have like five hundred computers, I’ve seen them. Even an old laptop without a wireless card would be more efficient than this.”  
  
He sneered a grin at her, and she could hear the popping and dinging of some phone game. He certainly didn’t seem to be in any hurry, himself. “Just consider this extra practice to help with that crappy handwritin’ of yours. S’not my fault your S and your 5 got mixed up. Keep goin’, the sooner we get this new data in, the sooner I can get my shit. And this time I got a l’il extra something for you, on top of you getting to keep _not dyin’_! Don’t thank me all at once, now.”  
  
They had a routine now, and Vivee knew herself to be a lover of schedules and routines. It was almost easy to think of it as a form of domesticity, but maybe that was just to cope. She’d made herself useful and clung to that one, thin line of security, in the hopes that it would continue to keep her alive. Stockholm Syndrome was definitely on her mind, especially when Lucas would get back to the room and she would find herself… _glad_ , that he was back. He was her only social companion, and even though he was like an extremely shitty employer and roommate rolled into one nasty package, it was all she had. Especially since escaping seemed more and more impossible by the day, with what she learned.  
  
Once Eveline had you, you couldn’t leave. Lucas had told her that he’d tried everything at first. Everything from gunshots to the brain and decapitation, to simply trying to walk through the swamp and leave, only to be petrified and dragged back each and every time. Back before he’d embraced it all, anyway. She now knew if you tried to leave, and the only way anyone truly ‘got out’ was when Evie let them, but mostly she just got bored of them and simply killed them off before going to find a new plaything…and Lucas was the go-to man to bring back new victims, being the only one who was allowed to leave the premises, and could come and go as he pleased. When Vivee had asked why he didn’t make a run for it on one of the times he was allowed to leave, he just laughed at her.  
  
He grunted and pulled himself off of her, swinging his legs back around to haul himself off the couch. “Gonna crack the whip a bit here, Viv, I got a long way to go to meet my pals with this stuff. Hurry it up.”  
  
“Employee morale is down, I’m doing the best I can,” she replied dryly, before stapling the envelope full of gruesome photos to the stack of papers. “Here.”  
  
Snatching it from her hands, he flipped through it before shoving it into a battered messenger bag. “Nice. Niiiiiice. Arright, I’m off. You know the rules while I’m gone. You just be a real good girl like you been doin’, and don’t touch my shit. Okay, okay, where’s the…There it is. Okay, yeah, got everything. Good’baaaah!”  
  
He clattered off, and she heard the doors slam and the sound of him bounding down the rickety stairs, two at a time. Whenever he went to go meet his ‘friends’, he would usually be gone a long time and she would have the day to herself. Still chained to a couch by the ankle, of course, but a bit of guaranteed privacy was always appreciated. As soon as she was sure he was gone, she went for the stack of R-rated VHS films that she’d conveniently hoarded away behind the other stacks of tapes, slid down the tops of her jeans and pushed her hand inside her panties.  
  
It was the only way to get any real stress relief around here. And this time, she definitely wasn’t going to think of him while she did it. Not like those other times…  
  
The hours went by.  
  
She had fallen asleep at some point, and the television was playing nothing but muted static. Drooling into her elbow where she lay with the blanket half-tangled around her, she was awoken with such a start that she snorted aloud, eyes flying open and going wide as a cold feeling rushed over her.  
  
Eveline stood in front of the television, backlit menacingly by the flickering white and black. With her head slightly down and her limp dark hair covering part of her face, only one menacing blue eye was left to stare down at the woman on the sofa, even as the little girl smiled a bit and coyly folded her hands behind her.  
  
“Hi Vivian.”  
  
“…Hi Eveline,” Vivee said softly, quickly sitting up and folding her hands in her lap. “How are you?”  
  
“I’m bored. I want to have a tea party. My sister Zoe won’t come, and my other mommy’s been bad again…so you’re invited. Come to the main house.”  
  
“But Eveline, Lucas said I should stay here. See?” She lifted up her leg, the handcuff and chain still attached. “I’m sorry.”  
  
“Oh. I’ll help you get out of that.” The little girl smiled eerily, still staring without blinking, before nodding to the can of ravioli nearby. “Get that fork.”  
  
Vivee swallowed down a clogged throat, hand starting to shake as she reached over and fetched it.  
  
Evie waved to her manacled limb. “Just take your foot off. Then you can come down to the house.”  
  
“Eveline…Please, that’s…that will hurt me. A lot.” She stared down at the fork, still covered in bright, bright red processed tomato sauce.  
  
“I’m not having a tea party in Lucas’s stupid boy room. Come down. Now.”  
  
Vivee’s hand seized, blinking once as the apparition of the little girl was gone just as quickly as she had come. Once again she felt paralyzed, forced to watch behind her own eyes, trapped in her own body that was moving without her telling it to. Rolling up the bottom of her jeans, she pulled the cuff’s metal tight around her bony ankle, straining until she felt it scraping and hurting. It was no good. It simply wouldn’t fit over the curve of her foot. And she had to go down to the house.  
  
She aimed the fork at her ankle and brought it slamming down.

* * *

  
  
She hopped over the yard as best she could, the bottom of her pants stained red to the knee, and the stump of a bone surrounded by shredded threads of hanging flesh. Everything hurt. Everything hurt so much, how was she going to keep on like this? It had taken her a while to sever her foot with nothing but a fork, tears streaming silently down her cheeks as she slowly hop-hop-hopped over the dry and cracked pan of mud that seemed to go on for miles. She had to make it to the main house. She had to go to the tea party. Because Eveline told her to.  
  
Marguerite swung open the door as she struggled up the porch steps. The old woman smiled with her gray teeth, her gray hair done up in pink ribbons. “Vivian, sweetie! We were worried you weren’t coming. Poor Evie would be beside herself if you didn’t make it.”  
  
Out of breath, she hobbled one-footed into the foyer, huffing and puffing and trailing puddles of red and black. “I…made it…Sorry…Mrs. Baker…”  
  
“So polite! Can’t believe my Lucas got so lucky with you,” Marguerite just kept smiling, turning and starting to lead her wounded and bleeding guest up to the second floor, not pausing as the girl struggled valiantly up the stairs behind her, hauling herself up on the rail with both arms. She only paused to look back at her once. “Right this way! It’s so lucky Evie came along. Zoe and Lucas started demanding their own rooms when they got older, but I never had the heart to change the kids’ room into anything else. Lucky I kept around all those old toys for my little girl!”  
  
“R-right, Mrs. Baker.”  
  
Pale from shock and blood loss, Vivee was led into a large cheerfully painted room, separated into halves down the middle where Lucas and the mysterious Zoe had once staked their claims. Just like the mother Baker had said, it was still crowded with toys; from a rocking horse and doll house, to the sports equipment and stuffed gator. She had a hard time imagining Lucas as a child here. She couldn’t really imagine what any of the family might have been like before becoming…this.  
  
A table had been hauled into the middle of the room, and around it were several chairs, brimming with stuffed animals and dolls. Eveline, or at least the old woman version of her, was slumped weakly in her wheelchair, a tiara buckled onto her gray hair. And nobody, including Marguerite, seemed bothered by the fact that one of the Molded creatures was also sitting in a chair nearby. The hideous, mutated mass of black sludge gurgled softly as it sat placidly, oozing onto the carpet. Vivian went even whiter in the face than she had been before, saying nothing as she watched the monster reach up to adjust the crown that was sloughing off the area where its head would have been.  
  
Eveline lifted a hand, trembling with age, to motion Marguerite and Vivian to their seats. Marguerite giggled happily and practically skipped to hers, caring nothing for the flies buzzing around her. Vivian, still left to hobble on one foot, painstakingly hopped to a chair and half-fell down atop it.  
  
“Vivian…See? I invited your friend,” Eveline said, voice creaking. “Aren’t you glad to see her?”  
  
Across from her, the Molded uttered a belching sound, a teacup hooked on one of its teeth. Vivee stared blankly at the shapeless mass, ignoring the putrid stench coming in waves from its form. She never would have guessed it. No more blond hair. No more snort when she laughed too hard. No more vivacious and go-getter personality. No more larger breasts that she’d always been a little jealous of. Nothing was left of her old friend that she could have ever recognized.  
  
“Hi…Hannah,” Vivee managed weakly.  
  
The Molded groaned, a black bubble popping near its jaws. Vivee dug herself somewhere deep inside of her brain and put up all the barriers she could. She couldn’t end up like Hannah. Poor Hannah. Keep calm. Keep alive. Keep calm. Keep alive. Maybe Lucas would be back soon and notice she was gone. Maybe he’d come looking for her. Maybe she could stall them long enough that they would leave to find new entertainment. Keep calm. Keep alive.  
  
The tea party commenced. Marguerite poured dirty-looking water from a china teapot decorated with pink flowers. “Vivian, sweetheart, put on your hat. We’re all princesses for an afternoon.”  
  
Vivee put on the tiara. She couldn’t help but notice that hers was the smallest one, and had a crack in it. Even the Molded had a better one.  
  
“Oh, I haven’t had a tea party in ages. I bought this set for Zoe back when she was just a little thing! She never really was a girly girl, though. Practically had to beg her to use it, had to throw my own tea parties and just invite her sometimes. I always took lots of pictures when we did have ‘em, though…We’d put on costumes and tutus and…back when she was…” Marguerite’s gaze went very far away and she seemed to be listening to something. Then her expression changed abruptly, and her voice went harsh and snarling, just as foul-mouthed as before. “That insipid little bitch, always was a difficult one! I gave her everything! _EVERYTHING! UNGRATEFUL LITTLE WHORE GREW UP T’DISGRACE US ALL! I TRIED! I FUCKING TRIED! GOD DAMN JESUS CHRIST KNOWS I TRIED!_ ”  
  
The old woman in the wheelchair smiled a little. “Not like me…Right, mama?”  
  
“You’re the only girl I got now, Eveline. You’re my little princess now…” Marguerite picked up her teacup and brought it to her cracked lips, pretending to sip.  
  
Vivian sat there with a blanked out expression, mechanically ‘sipping’ her tea as well.  
  
“Blrrggrgh ahhrrr…” Hannah said.  
  
Evie laughed. “It’s not Vivian’s fault she can’t visit, Hannah…My dumb brother’s been keeping her in his house.”  
  
“I’m sure he’s been a perfect gentleman, ain’t that right, Vivian dear? I raised that boy right,” Marguerite said, tilting her diseased gaze to the girl in question as a weevil scuttled out of her nose and into her shirt collar. “Has he been good to you? You can tell us. S’just us girls here!”  
  
“It’s been…fine. We’ve been taking things slow,” Vivee assured them gently.  
  
“Do you love Lucas now? Since you kissed him.”  
  
The memory of eating Lucas’s tongue made her shudder. Evie was watching her again, and Vivee felt something cold and black pulse around her brain, like something was prodding around. Little black sticky fingers reached into the crevices of her mind, pulling at the meat there.  
  
“H-he’s been very good to me,” she said, still feeling sick on the inside. Had Lucas actually been good to her? Of course not. He was literally her captor, only keeping her around for her ability to translate, write, and occasionally argue. But she’d take a hundred days with him if it meant one less minute at this tea party. “I like him a lot. He’s…he’s really smart.”  
  
Marguerite’s pride seemed to swell a bit at that, chest puffing. “He is. My boy’s always been a bona fide genius. It turned him into a troublemaker, but so smart. And he likes you a lot, Vivian. I can tell. Why, he’s never had a girlfriend this long. Can almost hear wedding bells arready!”  
  
Eveline frowned suddenly at that, and Vivian wanted to shrink down into a very small bundle and die, mumbling something that she hoped sounded like an agreement.  
  
“He’s been spending all his time with you…” Evie pointed out, a little resentment under her tone. “He never comes around anymore, not like he used to…Maybe he’s out there with you too much.”  
  
Marguerite was, as usual, all mechanical pleasantness and sugar sweetness on Evie’s behalf. “Thaaaat’s right. Not enough time with his family and his little sister. Can’t even remember the last time we all had supper together. It’s real unbecoming behavior, that boy.”  
  
Evie was watching her again, voice too soft. “Maybe he’ll come down to eat…if Vivian’s there…”  
  
“Hrraaagh,” Hannah agreed.  
  
Alarm bells were ringing between her ears again. Keep calm. Keep alive. She had to say something. She had to divert their attention off Evie’s apparently volatile jealousy. She took another sip of her pretend tea, mind racing.  
  
She uttered a little weak laugh. “M-me? Heh, he spends more time on his computer than with me. B-but we like doing things together too! Um…watching movies?…Snuggling?”  
  
Marguerite narrowed her eyes. “You’re not doin’ anything…untoward…with my boy? Are you?”  
  
This wasn’t going well. Not a good line of conversation to go down. Vivee waved both hands quickly. “No ma’am. No, Mrs. Baker. I sleep out on the couch. And that’s fine with me. I don’t want to sleep with him!”  
  
“Why not?” Evie said.  
  
Damnit. She felt cornered, both women eying her, and whatever Hannah was, also seeming to eye her. Her voice was suddenly very dry and a little squeaky. “Because he’s…gross?”  
  
“Gross?” Marguerite growled.  
  
The room suddenly seemed very small and stifling, the reek of mold overpowering. The predators were all around her, closing in with each and every word, and here she was with one leg and a rapidly crumbling resolve.  
  
She blurted out the first thing she could think of.  
  
“He farts in his sleep.”  
  
For a minute, there was silence. And then Evie began giggling, and for a moment it sounded almost genuine, like any little child who giggled at the mere mention of the word. Bodily functions were funny to children across the world over…or whatever world she might have come from. Her bony shoulders shook, and her voice sounded young again. “Does he? Really? Ewww! Lucas farts in his sleep!”  
  
The tension was sucked out of the air all at once, as Evie continued giggling, and was quickly joined by Marguerite. Even Hannah’s molded corpse began uttering strange bubbling noises like it might have been trying to copy them. Vivee breathed out a sigh and tried to keep smiling.  
  
“Aw honey, that’s just what men do,” Marguerite nodded. “My darlin’ Jack’s done run me out of the bedroom some nights after dinner.”  
  
“Y…yeah…”  
  
Evie snickered a little before weakly turning her head, and for a moment Vivee hoped that she had almost won her favor, and this would all be over soon.  
  
“Okay. Vivian, you can stay. Now, let’s play some games!”

* * *

  
  
Three hours later, Vivee literally came crawling out of the main house. Her severed leg was now sporting a bulbous black growth where her foot had started to grow back, but her other leg was now so twisted and broken that it was beyond useless. Playing ‘tag’ and trying to run from the others with one leg had not gone well for her, and the punishments for being caught had been severe. Her crushed tiara still hung on one side of her head, tangled in her hair, matted with blood and sparkly rhinestones that nearly blinded her. The blows to the head had not been kind, and she could vaguely remember seeing bits of her brain go splattering onto the wall as the thing that was once Hannah stood above her, claws raised. At least Marguerite had taken pity on her. Seeing the girl sweaty and injured, she had locked her in the family’s meat freezer for a while to help ‘cool her down from this awful heat’, and there was still crystallized ice all over her, rapidly melting in the sweltering sun.  
  
She was working on base instinct, random bits of self-preservation still firing in what was left of her head. Dragging herself on her belly, it was a long and arduous journey from the main house, back to the barn. Barn was safe. Barn kept her safe. Lucas kept her safe. Home. Had to go home.  
  
A long red smear followed her progress across the yard, though the collapsed halfway to rest, fingernails filthy with ichor and dirt from clawing her way. She hoped she was going the right way. If she wriggled hard enough, maybe she could get there before sunset. But dragging herself was exhausting business, and she didn’t have the strength nor the rapid healing power of Lucas or the others. With flies buzzing around her and the sun still beating down, she coughed and flopped down in the dirt, wheezing for breath.  
  
Just a little bit more…

* * *

  
  
“Jesus fucking Christ. Gawddamnit! Pain in my ass!”  
  
She must have passed out in the middle of the yard, though she heard the faint sounds of a familiar voice cursing. Lucas must have gotten back. It sounded distant and foggy, like cotton was muffling everything in her ears. She vaguely felt fingers pushing at her, then a hand slapping her cheek lightly, but those also felt numb and far away. When his attempts to rouse her didn’t seem to do any good, he went the more direct route once more, throwing her mangled form over one shoulder and just carrying her back towards the barn once again. The blur of the dirt, wood, and stairs passed below her quickly, and she expected to be thrown back onto the sofa again.  
  
Not that she would have minded. She missed the sofa. The sofa had been safe, until it wasn’t.  
  
Instead she found herself tossed rather roughly into the dingy tub of Lucas’s bathroom, and she realized he was spraying her in the face with water.  
  
“Viv! Wake up! Damn, they did a number on ya. You went to a tea party, didn't you? Dumbshit, you _never_ go to a tea party!”  
  
“Nnnn…”  
  
He scratched his head when she still didn’t look up at him, frowning. “Well, this really ain’t the best situation for your big surprise. But I guess let’s do it anyway. Damn, had a whole plan, was gonna have a night with tacos n’ ice cream n’ shit, the whole nine yards. Maybe even a beer if I felt like you deserved it. Ya fucked up it up, Viv!”  
  
Her head lolled back, staring blankly up at the ceiling and still not hearing him. He frowned, disliking not being able to get a rise out of her. Grumbling to himself, he let her flop down into the tub, retrieving a small, official looking black suitcase. Clicking it open, he pulled out a syringe, a tube, and two vials of pale fluid. Holding the shot between his teeth, he carefully mixed the chemicals together, shaking it and glancing at the numbers before transferring it to the vial of the syringe and pressing his wide thumb on the plunger, aiming it just above her neck.  
  
“I remember this part being really shit, by the way,” he said, before piercing her throat and forcing the chemical into her all in one go, pressing hard to empty it through the needle.  
  
She uttered a little noise, then fell over and went limp.  
  
“Uh…Viv?” Lucas stared down at her, suddenly unsure. Glancing to the syringe, then back to her, he tossed it onto the counter before shaking her shoulder. No response. He uttered another stream of curses, kneeling down and pulling her up in one arm, feeling for a pulse on her throat. “Vivee? Aw, shit, I did just what it said! If they got it wrong-”  
  
She spasmed in grip suddenly, entire body jolting. He brightened and leaned over her, ready to harass her further once she woke up. She was still twitching, and he grinned when she looked ready to respond. Instead her mouth opened, and she immediately projectile vomited a torrent of black sludge right into his face.  
  
“ _FUUUUUCK! GOD! FUCKIN’! BITCH! DAMNIT!_ ” He fell back onto his ass as she painted the ceiling with another burst of ichor, using both hands to try and wipe the mess out of his eyes and face. “ _FUCK_ , that burns!”  
  
He’d remembered the compound having a violent reaction with Eveline’s mold, but he’d never really asked for the specifics and his memories of it were hazy at best. It hadn’t seemed important at the time. Shame Vivian wasn’t awake for all this, she could have recorded it. Actually, probably best he get the data for her to compile later. Leaving her thrashing in the tub, he ran and grabbed the nearest pen and paper, smearing mold vomit all over the legal pad in the process.  
  
She was definitely in a lot of pain, eyes rolling back until they were just whites, the red veins turning black. She was having some kind of seizure too, though he didn’t know if they had names for different kinds. It wasn’t doing anything for her broken leg, joints and sinew popping audibly as strings of mold started tightening and loosening at random, almost like the muscles they were attached to. Rolling onto her stomach, mouth still oozing black, she started clawing at her head. Probably where it hurt most of all, as far as Lucas could figure. Made sense, since it was severing the neural connections there.  
  
He’d seen plenty of death throes. They were pretty funny things, all thrashing and shrieking and turning into something even less than animals. Fire, electricity, bludgeoning, head trauma, blood loss; he’d seen a lot of pretty shit ways to die. It made him all that much happier that dying was something he no longer had to worry about. Now, death by neural overload was something he didn’t have the chance to see before. And Vivian would definitely want that information for later, if she made it through. No doubt The Connections would want to hear about the effects later, too. Good thing he was recording everything now. All in the interests of science, this was.  
  
Sure, it was giving him a boner, but he figured he didn’t need to record that part. Private stuff, that.  
  
Vivian was ripping her own hair out now, pulling away skin, and he wondered if he’d tried doing the same, although with his much sparser hair that would have been a feat. It looked like something had hit her in the skull recently, now that he looked at her, and had barely had time to start healing before he’d dosed her. Maybe he should have waited until she was healed up to dose her? Too late now.  
  
He sat and watched her until her thrashing stopped, and she slumped face-down into the tub and into the pool of black at the bottom. Her breath made little bubbles pop on the surface, and he rolled his eyes before reaching in to turn her over onto her back. Her eyelids were closed, and there was rapid eye movement beneath, like when she had a bad dream. He wrote that down. The spasms were coming slower now, and less severe. He wrote that down too. And then she called out his name.  
  
Or really, she kind of slurred out a half-retarded sounding “Luu-kiiith…” but he was pretty sure it was his name. That made him squint a bit. He’d had plenty of people screaming his name, sometimes in anger like his parents, or victims begging for mercy, or the occasional girl who thought her feminine wiles could trick him. He liked hearing it, the desperation in their tone and the power he had over them. Now, someone yelling his name in the way she just had, crying for him like that while not even awake…Well, that was a new one. He wasn’t really sure how he felt about that at all. Made him feel a bit weird in the gut. Like, ‘suspicious leftover refried beans coming back on ya’ levels of weird. Probably just an effect of the re-molding.  
  
Lucas decided not to write that part down.  
  
He turned on the water, washing the sludge off her body and down the cracked porcelain, gurgling down the drain. He thought of moving her to the sofa or bed, but when she started coughing up more mold, he vetoed the idea and decided to keep her there. Could contain as least some of the mess, and also help keep her cool from the fevers that were sure to come, the kind that had almost killed him while his body adjusted to the ‘edits’ in his infection. The Connections had made the serum effective, but damned if it wasn’t the most pleasant thing to experience. And he’d kind of grown to like having a bitchy little secretary around, so best to try and keep her alive if he could.  
  
He dragged a chair into the bathroom and sat nearby the tub, playing games on his phone, scribbling down notes, and occasionally watching her.  
  
Ya know. For science.


	5. Chapter 5

She came to on the bathroom floor, a dirty towel draped over her and her cheek laying on the cracked tile. Her head was pounding and she felt feverish, her focus still a little blurry. Rubbing at her forehead, her palm came away clammy and sweaty, and she groaned aloud as she rolled onto her back. Her last memories were of Eveline’s nightmarish tea party and trying to drag herself home, but after that…She was fairly sure Lucas had found her out there, but after that her world had been nothing but pain and blackness. Maybe he had beaten her further, thinking her trying to escape again? She didn’t have any memory of that, but why else would her head feel this way?  
  
How long could she keep up this nightmare of a life? Would she eventually be driven to try and end it, only to be reformed again and again in some never-ending hell? Or would it be like Lucas said, where she’d lose all sense of herself and become a warped husk of a person like his parents? Would that actually be kinder in the end?  
  
As sad as it was to say it…she wondered if maybe she had made the wrong choice, not eating that poisoned chocolate he had offered her at the beginning of it all.  
  
The steady drip-drip-drip from the leaky faucet sounded like thunder as it reverberated around the room and between her ears. Her mouth felt dry and cottony, tongue swollen, and she made herself drag her top half up enough that she could bend over the tub, cupping her hands to catch the leaking water. A few mouthfuls made her feel a tiny bit better, at least enough to use her voice again.  
  
“Hello?”  
  
There was the sound of movement somewhere out in the kitchen, before the sound of footsteps brought Lucas in, where he leaned on the doorway and stood casually eating a piece of cheese toast, making a mess everywhere. “Oh, you’re awake. Damn, s’been like three days, I almost forgot you were around. Was wonderin’ if you’d make it through all the way.” He took another bite, spraying crumbs as he spoke. “You look like shit warmed over, girl.”  
  
“My head hurts,” she said a little lamely, still half-slumped over the tub and rubbing her forehead. “What happened…?”  
  
“Yeah, I remember the headache bein’ a real damn doozy. That just means it worked,” he smirked, a crumb of bread still stuck on his chin. He approached her, lowering to sit on the edge of the filthy tub. “So. Decided a secretary was worth keepin’ after all, so I made a little bargain with my friends. You get to stick around and keep doin’ your job and being useful, and in return I’m cutting Evie’s hold and letting you keep your brain. So, welcome to _my_ family, Vivee.”  
  
She folded her face into her arms, groaning a little before rolling one eye up to him. That last bit had interested her. “You can cut Evie’s hold?”  
  
“Y’see, my pals and I got an arrangement going. The Connections helped me out with getting my infection under control, and in return, I’m feeding them little bits and pieces about my favorite l’il sister and her progress here. All those papers you been workin’ on, those go to The Connections. And they’re giving me money, Viv. Lots and lots of money.” He looked even more self-satisfied than before, leaning towards her with a glint in his wide eyes like he expected to be praised for it.  
  
“They can cure Eveline’s infection? The mold, they can get rid of it?”  
  
“Even better! This is lettin’ us keep all the ‘gifts’ she gave us, but we get to keep our selves. Pretty fuckin’ snazzy, huh? And she’s none the wiser. All we gotta do is keep the act up-”  
  
He faltered a bit when she grabbed onto his hand, her own eyes suddenly almost as wide and bloodshot as his. “Kill her! We can kill her! Call them, tell them to come in and kill her!”  
  
He blinked, then rolled his eyes and shook her hand off. “Aw, jesus. See, this is why you’re still just an assistant to the greats, here and everywhere else. You’ve got no vision! You’re missin’ the big picture. That fuckin’ thing in there, playin’ at being a little girl? She’s my ticket to something way bigger. More than just money, more than knowledge, more than my friends at The Company even fuckin’ comprehend. And me, I’m the only one who’s got access to this thing and its ‘gifts’. And soon I’m gonna own that too. You know what that makes me?”  
  
“Humble and unpretentious?” she deadpanned, putting her face in her elbows again with a little groan.  
  
“See. I was gonna say ‘a god’, Viv, but you just gotta piss in my cheerios, doncha?” He finished his toast, licking the tips of his greasy fingers before going to ruffle her hair like she was a favored dog, probably getting cheese in her tangles in the process. “Anyhow, you and me are gonna have a little meet n’ greet with The Company soon. Motherfuckers think they can get shit past me by using fancy ass languages and bureaucracy, that’s where you come in. Once they get the lab set up proper, that’s when the fun’s really gonna start.”  
  
He almost looked a little dreamy, still patting her. “Gonna have to take me serious then, ain’t they? They’ll find out who’s actually running things, real quick. Gonna get you a little clipboard and outfit and little heels n’ shit. Heh. Assistant to the head honcho, ain’t you the luckiest gal in the world?”  
  
She eyed him a little balefully, peeking over her forearm once more. Anger sizzled unpleasantly in her gut, roiling like acid, fighting with the overwhelming pain inside her aching skull. “What if…I don’t want to?”  
  
“Huh?”  
  
“What if I don’t want to be your paperwork slave anymore? Whatever company or government or whatever this is, what if we just call them in and get rid of her? We can save your parents, and I can finally go home, and you won’t have to bring in victims anymore, and you won’t have to be…THIS!” She gestured up and down him.  
  
“The fuck’s that mean?!”  
  
“Maybe you don’t have to be YOU!” she snapped. “We can fix you! We can stop this!”  
  
For a very long minute he just stared at her, and his expression twisted into something more familiar and cold. She’d seen it plenty of times before, and nothing good ever followed. “Ooooh, I get it. I see what’s goin’ on. You’ve got a little headache buzzin’, still a little sore, maybe it’s your time of the month, and it’s making you all shitty and braver than you should be,” he said. He leaned down towards her, and there was a sudden yank on her hair, making her yelp a little as she was pulled up to face him. She was faced with those bulging blue eyes, until his forehead was almost pressed against hers and she went almost cross-eyed to try and see him. “This is the thanks I get? That’s a real fuckin’ fine howdy-doo, after I stick my gawdamn neck out for you, get you the company cure and dose you up proper so you don’t become a shamblin’ shitforbrains like the rest.”  
  
She started trying to back away, but found a hand around her throat keeping her very much in place. He didn’t squeeze yet, but his fingers tightened enough to let her know that they could. Vivee began to lift her hands in placating surrender, but instead he gave her a little shake to keep her still. “And who the fuck are you to tell me what I should be, or what anyone here should be! Maybe I don’t give a good god damn about my ‘family’! Cause they never gave a god damn about me! Nobody did! Fuck ‘em!”  
  
She didn’t answer.  
  
“Maybe I like what I am now, Vivee Girl, you ever think that? Maybe this is what I’m supposed to have been, all-a-fucking-long! And woooo, baby, if I like how I am now, just think how I’m gonna like it when all this really gets going? Of course…like ya said, maybe you don’t ‘want to’?” He gave a choked noise that was sort of a laugh. “Don’t wanna be my secretary, I’m sure I can find other uses for you…”   
  
He trailed off, simply let the words hang in the air. She knew the things he had done, what he was capable of. His idle threats were not always idle.  
  
She wasn’t brave enough. She was never a very brave one. Beyond quiet remarks and wry humor, she had nothing and was no heroine. Her one real attempt at escape had been a fluke, and then a disaster, and now she was angering the only one who had shown her even a semblance of clemency; even if it was just him using her for things he didn’t want to bother doing. Despite Evie’s gift bolstering her, she had nothing that could compare to Lucas’s strength, and there was no way she could try to fight. Maybe if she just stayed quiet, and tried to keep him happy until she could reach somebody sane at this ‘company’ he kept talking about…Maybe that was the only chance she really had? She had so very, very few choices in this place…  
  
Maybe an apology would help for now. She submitted quickly, shrinking down and looking away. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-”  
  
“Yeah, bet ya didn’t.” He released her, still looking foul-tempered. “Jesus, and here I was in a good fuckin’ mood until now. I’m not gonna deal with this shit right yet. Get yourself cleaned up and back up on the couch, I got backlogged work what needs fixing. And me? I got more important things to tend to, asides from you. So you, you’re gonna stay right here. You’re gonna stay here until I say you’re done.”  
  
Some minutes later, Vivee was sitting back on that damned sofa, exactly where she had started, now faced with piles of more papers to fill out. She picked one up and began pretending to read over it, at least so she wouldn’t have to meet his gaze. And Lucas said nothing, fastening the handcuff back around her ankle even tighter than before.  
  


* * *

  
  
The following days were strange. Lucas was clearly still irritated with her, snapping at her with little provocation, and more than once withholding her meals for no good reason other than she wasn’t doing a ‘good enough’ job. That didn’t surprise her. What was even more irksome was his simultaneous want to be closer to her; the way he would climb onto the couch next to her, sometimes with little treats to seemingly win her favor, and try to drape himself across her lap to watch a movie with her, though he still refused to even give her musicals a chance.  
  
It seemed almost…a little childish? Like a boy on the playground who tried to get a girl to like him by acting like an idiot. Or, in Lucas’s case, even he didn’t know what the fuck he wanted, and she certainly didn’t either. She knew better than to try to criticize him out loud again, at least. The boy had a temper and more in common with his father than he wanted to admit, even if she wouldn’t say that aloud either.  
  
She had no idea how to handle this sort of thing. How was one supposed to react to a man who insulted and threatened her one moment, only to whine and demand her attention the next? A sort of muted wariness was the new norm, which did absolutely nothing to make the situation any better.  
  
His new ideas of ‘bonding’ also happened to include them watching snuff films, which also did not help. He’d been working on a new series of trap rooms and puzzles in his barn, and apparently had gone out in search of new test subjects to run them. He would record the whole thing, from dumping his hapless victims into the test zone, taunting them as they struggled to make it through alive, and making commentary all the way to their inevitably gruesome end.  
  
Which is why he was sprawled out with his legs across her lap again, munching popcorn and laughing uproariously at the footage of a middle-aged vagrant man in the holiday room she had once been in, wearing the explosive antlers headpiece that was slipping with all the sweat pouring off him as he struggled to figure out the reindeer names puzzle. Occasionally he would burst into tears and beg to be let out, while Lucas’s voice in the video kept making promises that he would release him as soon as he finished the escape room. More than once, the clearly mentally unstable man would just start sobbing and collapse on the ground, until the threat of holiday antler detonation set him straight again.  
  
Lucas threw a piece of popcorn at the screen. “Here’s a good part, Viv. Dumb son of a bitch didn’t even remember the names of the reindeers or anything, had to basically tell him the first puzzle solutions to get him through. Look, look! He’s gonna open the box!”  
  
Vivian watched impassively as the box was opened, a flash of light and a bang then spraying the unlucky victim in the face with metal screws, piercing one of his eyes and leaving the poor man to figure out the rest of the box puzzle while maimed, weeping and covered in blood. Lucas hooted like this was the funniest thing he’d seen in a long time, literally slapping his knee and looking to her for approval. “See! See! That’s how it’s supposed to be done! At least he’s a good sport who followed the damn rules, unlike you.”  
  
“But he dies at the end,” she pointed out.  
  
“Yeah!”  
  
“What’s the point of telling them to follow the rules and that they can escape, if you’re not going to let them escape?”  
  
“Um, because it’s funny, dur-hoi,” he snorted, chomping on more popcorn. “Ya gotta get their hopes up, ya know? Dangle that carrot on a stick right in front of ‘em to the very last. Then, they really start getting rowdy when it doesn’t work out in the end.”  
  
“So, doesn’t it make more sense that I tried to make a break for it?” She reached past him to steal a handful of snacks. “I guess it makes me an unbreakable rebel spirit.”  
  
“It makes you a little shit who doesn’t follow the rules, Viv.”  
  
Vivee paused, but there didn’t seem to be any real menace in his voice. She ventured another question. “What was going to happen if I solved it, then?”  
  
“Wasn’t rigged to blow all the way until you fucking re-rigged it. At most you would have gotten a some shrapnel to the face from the presents, woulda healed up real quick. But noooo, you had to blow out the damn window and ruin half the props so you could make a run for it and make it all the way to the next damn building. I had to spend hours cleaning up your mess, you’re lucky I wasn’t allowed to fucking wring your teeny little neck. So. Yeah, kudos on all that.”  
  
“Well, I think…I deserve at least a few kudos,” she managed, perhaps just a bit snidely. “I still got out. And I didn’t know that Eveline was a warping moldy ghost girl with mind control powers at the time. And also-” She gestured to the television, and the man sobbing in front of a dummy dressed in a ragged mall elf suit. “Where do you even _get_ all these mannequins? Why do you have so many?”  
  
“I ain’t tellin’ you my trade secrets. Tryin’ to copy me?” He shoved more popcorn into his jaws.  
  
“No. If I was building puzzle rooms, I’d give them some sort of actual prize at the end?” She frowned at the screen, looking away as another wrong box was chosen but hearing the bang and the ensuing screams. “Something nice.”  
  
“Uh-huh. Well, unlucky for this fella he didn’t make it into your cookies-n-candy program. Here comes the grand finale! Now, don’t go hidin’ your precious little eyes, we both worked real hard on this and I think he’d want you to to bear witness!” He sat up, grasping her hands and holding them to one side so she couldn’t cover her eyes.  
  
And she did witness it, as the man ‘solved’ the gift puzzle and plugged in the tree. The lights flickered on one by one, as the Chipmunks Christmas Carols started playing over the speakers and the angel at the top was pulled off from where it had been covering the dynamite at the top. The whole tree was a powder keg, and there was nowhere left for the man to run as he screamed and screamed for help. There was a flash and a boom, and then the room was spattered with red liquid and various limbs and chunks. The Chipmunks continued to sing as the flames guttered and on screen, Lucas appeared with the fire extinguisher, looking pleased with himself as always.  
  
Beside her, almost pressed into her side and still pinning her arms, he was giggling and tittering madly to himself. “See! That’s how it’s done, baby! Boom!”  
  
“…I don’t need to be recording times and data for this, do I?”  
  
“Nah, this is s’posed to be relaxing! Just you and me watchin’ movies, some ‘us’ time, right?” He wiggled his brows at her. “Enjoying ourselves?”  
  
“Then can I choose the next movie night?”  
  
“Fuck no, you’re gonna have me watchin’ a bunch of drama class fags singing and dancing around in cat costumes or some shit,” he scoffed and released her, taking the popcorn bowl and finishing it off before throwing it onto the kitchenette counter with a clatter, standing and loping back towards his room. “Besides, I got some work to do for the boys back at The Company. They wanna know more about you and frankly, I’m a l’il embarrassed about listing your hobbies.”  
  
“The Company?” She perked up a bit at that. “Why are they asking about me?”  
  
“They like to know whose eyes are on what data, mostly. But then they’re probably gonna try to buy you out or offer you some shit to get another line of access to Eveline, so they can get me out of the picture and probably off me,” he answered casually, standing at his door. “But I’ll tell you right now, that’s not gonna happen.”  
  
Immediately she felt nervous and perhaps a bit called out, since that was basically her plan already, to get back to regular people and find a chance to get out of this hell. She tried to hide it, instead tidying up her rumpled blankets and living area. “Oh…What should I do?”  
  
“You and I are going to have a little pow-wow about that, after I get a few things solidified. They’re gonna be arriving with my new equipment at the mines, and once it’s set up… I might be givin’ you a little promotion, Vivee Girl. But after that little shitshow with you giving me lip right after I was nice enough to slip you the company cure, I can’t really be sure about your sense of professionalism, can I?”  
  
She wasn’t sure about any mines in the area, but she had to get herself there. She had to get him to take her there. She pulled herself off the couch, the chain tinkling merrily as it dragged along the floor, taking her cup and stretching it over to the sink for a refill. “I’m sorry about that, I am. I’d had a bad day…A bad few days…I woke up with a really bad headache, after that awful tea party, and Eveline made me cut my ankle off with a fork covered in Chef Boyardee.”  
  
He paused, a grin playing at his pale lips. “Heh! That’s actually kind of funny. Still, Chef Boyardee mutilation’s no excuse for bad behavior from my good girl. Ya know how many ladies have tried to pull the ol’ Boyardee move on me? Point is; you fucked up.”  
  
“Please don’t be mad at me…”  
  
“Aw, that’s sweet. You’re sweet. Givin’ me diabetes over here. See, that’s real different from you earlier. As soon as I wake you up, you’re yellin’ at me to change, you’re wanting to kill her, demanding for me to kill her. Wanting me to kill my meal ticket, my own little sister! S’not nice to kill little girls, is it, Viv? Who woulda thought you were so bloodthirsty underneath all that sugar? Kinda gets me to wonderin’.”  
  
She lowered her head. Be good. She knew how to be good, and being good was the way to get there. Eyes on the prize. “I won’t cause trouble, Lucas. I get the point. I promise.”  
  
His smirk widened a bit as he vanished into his room. “Yeah…We’ll see about that, won’t we?”  
  


* * *

  
  
The next day, very late morning, she awoke and got to work on some of new papers that Lucas had brought her, including lists of equipment, ERMI value methods to contain and study mold spores, and a mostly blotted out graph for E-Chart Mycology. Honestly, it wasn’t much to work with. But even then, she had trouble staying on task.  
  
She was different now. For whatever reason, Lucas was deciding to keep her around, to the point of ‘curing’ her and apparently planned to add her to his role at…whatever company wanted to be involved in a monstrous entity that was both an old woman and a little girl, who thought was pain was amusing and made friends by killing people and remaking them to her liking…whether they literally died or not, they were dead inside. The husks of the poor Bakers confirmed that much. But their son, as brilliant and horrible and extremely messed up as he was, had found a way around it. And now, in his own words, she was ‘his’ family now, not Eveline’s.  
  
What that actually meant, she had no idea. Their relationship, if there was one, was nebulous at best. They got along poorly on a base level, like oil and water. She was good. Lucas was bad. Everyone had skeletons in their closet, including her, but Lucas’s closet opened up onto an entire graveyard. But…he didn’t want her dead. He kept her around, kept wanting her to be around him. And other than his mostly absent father, Lucas had surprisingly hurt her the least in this madhouse, and even kept her safe and away from his mad family. Sometimes, it seemed like he was almost trying to be nice, in his own stupid, horrible way.  
  
She couldn’t stop wondering. Couldn’t stop thinking about it. Him. All of it and any of it. She needed a break.  
  
Lucas had said he was off to deal with company matters, so it sounded like she had a little time to herself again. Good. She could use another round of personal stress relief. She called out for him, lifting her voice, but heard no reply back. He had probably left earlier, then. Wasting no time, she went for her secret stack of R-rated material that she’d sequestered for just that purpose. She could remember watching it once, years ago…some sort of dopey romance story she hadn’t really followed very closely, but she remembered the love scenes being particularly steamy.  
  
She fast-forwarded it to the part she could remember. It was honestly pretty romantic, as far as sex scenes went. Less focused on fucking and more on the participants, with lots of artsy shots of their bodied entwined, his hips moving between her thighs without showing too much, her fingers scraping down his back, that kind of thing. Combined with close-ups of their grimaces and gasps of pleasure, broken only to kiss one another…Yeah, that was what she wanted.  
  
Her jeans were unbuttoned and pulled down yet again, moving her fingers to where she needed them. Her other hand groped blindly for the remote, finding it and awkwardly rewinding it to start again. Making herself comfortable on the couch at the center of her tiny world here, she began working herself. Her own panting and gasping soon joined the moans from the television, although the scene ended far too quickly. Not sure when the next one might be, she quickly rewound it and began again, the same grunting and groaning starting over, as did her panting.  
  
“Yes…yes…yes…” she chanted under her breath. Unlike the two lovers on the tv, she had nobody’s name to call out…Or, really, she did, but she just refused to. She already had enough to deal with. Don’t let someone like Lucas rule her fantasies too. Try not to think of him…Focus on the actual love on the screen. Enjoy herself while she could.  
  
She rewound the tv, bending her legs and opening her thighs wider as her fingers continued their delicate work. Faster and faster, body jolting a bit as she began writhing, as if against some invisible body she desperately wished was above her. Her fingertips digging into pale flesh, narrow hips slamming up between her thighs, and breathless moans in her ear…No, don’t let the image solidify too much. Keep it vague, keep it good. The scrape of nails tracing red welts into white skin, hissing and slurring and sweating above her, all the while pounding mercilessly down in strength he shouldn’t ever have been given…She refused to look at his face, refused to imagine his face. Didn’t wanna see those blue eyes…  
  
“L-Lucas…! Ah!”  
  
 _No! Damnit!_  
  
She came anyway, with a rasping whine she didn’t know she could make. Relaxed and self-satisfied, she leaned back into her sofa with a little moan, her hand still in her panties and forehead cool with sweat. Pausing the movie, with the man still mounted on the lady, she took a moment to catch her breath. At least in these moments, she could feel safe and pleasant and almost sane again, sighing as she slumped into her pillows.  
  
Until she heard a noise that made every nerve suddenly tensed all at once, and not in the same manner as her orgasm earlier. It was the squeak of a door’s hinges. A door was opening… For a moment she prayed that it was just the building settling. Everything here was old and in disrepair, after all. But then she heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps coming from Lucas’s room towards the den.  
  
 _Lucas_. He hadn’t been gone. He’d been here this whole time. Just in the next room over.  
  
She froze, feeling a sort of terror that was almost worst than what Eveline could inflict. The footsteps came nearer, and she could see the familiar dark cloth of his hoodie slither closer as he loomed into view by her feet. She just lay there, with pornography on the tv screen and her hand still in her pants, and it was far, far too late to pretend that nothing had been happening here.   
  
He just stood over her, face barely visible in the darkness of his hood, but the eerie pale blue of his eyes were little more than thin rings of color around the black pits where his pupils were blown out. Looking from her, to the screen, then back to her again, he just stared in a very unnerving way. The only sound was the heavy throaty noise of him swallowing, even louder with the silence on her end where she was forgetting to breathe. Very slowly, he padded around in front of her, blocking her view of the tv and throwing her into his shadow.  
  
She remained still, frozen like a stupid fucking animal, like a deer in the headlights of the threat that was still coming straight towards her.  
  
Breathing heavily, he leaned down over her and reached for her, bony fingers traveling down the curve of her arm, tracing into the bend of her elbow, and down to her barely visible wrist. He took hold, and with a surprising gentleness that she never wanted to feel from him, he pulled her hand out from where it had been buried in the half-soaked cotton, buried even deeper between her legs. She let him, her arm limp as death itself, even when he lifted her hand up and inspected it, turning it from side to side and watching how her fingertips glistened.  
  
Still no reaction from Vivee. Not even when he lowered down to both knees in front of her, and brought her wet fingertips to his mouth, sticking them in and sucking on them one by one. She watched, wide-eyed and silent, feeling his tongue winding around her digits and lapping them clean. His lips closed in a pale O around her pointer finger at the last, suckling on the digit before pulling away with a little pop. Licking his lips and pressing his own fingers into her palm, he lowered her hand back onto her bare stomach, now sticky with his saliva instead of her cum. Standing once more, he stared down at her and she finally tore her gaze away from her hand and up to him, to stare back. His cheeks bulged slightly, running his tongue along his teeth. Surprisingly hesitant after his bold actions, he cleared his throat and then nodded towards the door of his room.  
  
“So uh. I got way better shit than these dumb chick flicks. Uh…if you uh…if you wanna see…Uh, what’re you into?”  
  
“Uhhhm….”  
  
“Heh, y’actually are sweet. I mean, you even taste it.”  
  
“Uuuhhhmmm…”  
  
“Wouldn’t mind another taste…Wanna come see the good stuff?”  
  
Her eyes darted to his bedroom. A serial killer and madman who had been holding her captive was inviting her into his bedroom, to watch porn. This, after months of insulting her looks and leching over other less fortunate victims, and making it very, very clear that the ‘girlfriend’ gig was nothing more than to keep up appearances for his family. And after licking her juices off her fingers like he was a starved thing. The man who had been the focus of far too many mold-addled dreams was finally inviting her in for something far, far more satisfying than anything she could do to herself… Yes? No? What was she into, again? Fuck, she had to say something!  
  
Her voice sounded just as tiny and horrified as she felt. “…S-sorry…I thought you were gone…”  
  
Stretching his bony spine, he pulled himself up out of his casual slouch, looking entirely too casual for someone whose normal state was manic twitching and fidgeting. “Hehehe, hey, we all been there? Th’ one time you decide to watch porn with th’ sound up, turns out they were still in the house, right? I shouldn’t be surprised ya were watching this vanilla shit, girl who likes musicals. So, hey…”  
  
His gaze flickered to his bedroom door again, a not so subtle signal.  
  
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe she just get it out of her system, have him fuck her a few times and then that would be that. She could finally get his visage out of her mind when she came. Over and done with. Even better; maybe it would be awful, weird, disappointing sex and the whole mystique of it would be dispelled for good. She could fantasize about normal things again, like she used to do. If she could just get it over with. But then again…  
  
What kind of den of horrors awaited in such a place? She wondered what sorts of things could titillate a man whose hobbies included sadistic puzzles, torture, casual murder, and a downright bizarre infatuation with mannequins? And like he had said so, himself, his tendencies couldn’t even be blamed on Eveline’s disease. This was just the way that he was. He watched his own self-created snuff films for a laugh, what the hell kind of porn would he even have? Would he subject her to the same things?  
  
She looked away from him, staring down into her lap with her face and probably her entire body blushing and lit up red like a freshly boiled lobster.  
  
“I-I shouldn’t…Oh my god, this is so…I’m sorry. I should get back to work. I’m going to get back to work now.”  
  
She couldn’t entirely understand why he looked so absolutely disappointed when she said that, watching her pile notebooks and papers back onto her lap. She was just a ‘secretary’, after all, just like he’d said. Not the hot kind, either, just like he’d said. If this was going to be her new place, then she had to make it work. Had to concentrate on not dying. She wiped his saliva onto the couch and picked up her pen, looking very, very hard into the gathered folders instead of at him.  
  
He rubbed the back of his hoodie unhappily. “You sure? Might be fun, right? I’ll let ya pick, choose whatever you want t-”  
  
“…Do I have to?”  
  
His eyes bulged again, the meaning of that question really seeming to hit him. Was he going to make her? Force her? He shook his head. “Naw. Naw you don’t have to.”  
  
“I should get things ready for the company, then,” she said, still not looking up. “We can’t mess this up. I told you, I won’t cause trouble…”  
  
His expression twitched. He looked ready to argue, then maybe a bit sad, then angry, then sad again, and finally he turned and punched the wall, ripping open his knuckles on the wood. Caring nothing for the bleeding and jagged splinters, he merely loped back back towards his room. Returning with his phone and folders, he passed by her and headed for the door, the metal clanging behind him, followed by the familiar clatter of him taking the steps, always two at a time.  
  
Vivee was left alone, but she no longer felt like relaxing.  
  


* * *

  
  
He returned later that night, well after midnight. Without really saying much, he took her through their nightly routine. The chain was unlocked and she was allowed something to eat and to use the bathroom and wash her face. There was a new shirt waiting for her by the sink, although it just looked like a free t-shirt from some kind of bbq restaurant, with their logo and a printed pig. But  she changed into it anyway, returning to where he waited for her outside as he took her back to the couch.  
  
She sat down on the cushions and waited for the chain around her ankle again. But Lucas merely tossed it aside with a rattling clatter and left her there, returning to his room again.  
  
He left his door cracked open that night, and she could see his shadow moving around inside, from the dim blue lights of his computer equipment and whatever else he must have had in there. Newly liberated from her ankle cuff and her chains, she still chose to remain on the couch, watching his silhouette every time it passed by the doorway. She couldn’t really sleep, and quickly gave up trying.  
  
She lay there on her sofa, watching him move back and forth. Several times, his lanky form covered up the strip of light in the doorway, where he must have been standing there and watching her in return.  
  
Something in their misbegotten little household had changed, and she had no idea if it was going to be for the better.


	6. Chapter 6

“Lucaaas!”  
  
“Whaaaat!”  
  
“I used up all the hot water again! Sorry!”  
  
Vivee stood dripping by the tub, drying off with a rather disgustingly crunchy old towel and trying not to wonder when it had last been washed. She’d have to put towels on the list. The bathroom sink was already full of detergent and cloth where she was valiantly making an effort to wash her old clothes free of body odor, and she’d strung up a few lengths of cord to make a sort of drying station, with a box fan pointed up at them. Hardly ideal, but what was, around here? She’d been spending a lot more time in the bathroom and trying to clean up, now that she wasn’t chained and only allowed to use it twice a day.  
  
Lucas yelled back from the living room. “Yeah, so? Ain’t that what girls always do?”  
  
“Don’t you want to shower?” She wrung out her sopping locks as best she could, hoping that Lucas’s one small comb could handle it. He didn’t have much to work with in the hair department, comb-wise, and her hair tended to eat them.  
  
“Naw, why?”  
  
“Because it’s an important day and we shouldn’t stink?”  
  
“Aw, jeez,” his muffled voice replied, and him rolling his eyes was almost audible. “Don’t get so worked up. I never shower for them, they ain’t important. You seem t’be forgettin’ that your’s truly is the one in charge here!”  
  
“Um…Also I clogged the drain again too!”  
  
“What the hell?! Girl, I put entire bodies down drains and they went down smoother than your gawdamn hair!”  
  
“Stop being gross!”  
  
“I ain’t the one cloggin’ the plumbing, being gross!”  
  
He kind of had her, there. She wrung out the rest of her towel as best she could before throwing it up on the makeshift clothesline with her best clothes…which was just the pair of jeans and the still-stained yellow shirt she had been given on her very first day in this hellhole. She’d cleaned them up the best she could, and had even warily requested Lucas to go and fetch her the little make-up box from her first room. To her surprise, he had gotten them. To her even more surprise, he hadn’t asked for anything in return. For some reason he had even returned with the giant stuffed alligator from his old room, shoving it at her on the couch. When she has asked why, he simply shrugged and said he didn’t know. But she didn’t complain, and had been using the well-loved gator as a pillow for the last week.  
  
She felt at the clothes hanging from the ceiling. Not entirely dry, but about as dry as they were going to get. And her poor bra was going to be nothing but scraps of cloth and wire by the end of the month, it was so worn out. She put them on anyway, wrinkling her nose at their dampness against her skin. In front of the mirror, she stood applying the make-up and combing out her hair.  
  
She wanted to look nice. Or, as nice as she could look, given the circumstances she was in. Lucas has scoffed at her, assuring her that looks didn’t matter since he was the boss and he consistently went without bathing and wore that ratty LCS hoodie everywhere he went. But after months of confinement and growing ever closer to a dangerous dependency on an unstable man, she was finally getting out. He was taking her out. So she wanted to look nice.  
  
“Lookit you, all dolled up,” Lucas snickered a bit when she finally left the bathroom, appearing in the hallway where he was waiting. “Only took ya five fuckin’ hours and another clogged drain to get ready. I keep tellin’ you it’s not a big deal.”  
  
“I know, I know…But do I look all right?” She didn’t really feel ‘dolled up’ or even semi-professional in these clothes, but she’d given it the old college try.  
  
“Yeah, for you.”  
  
She paused in mid-action, smoothing down the front of her shirt, head slowly turning and looked at him. He didn’t even seem aware that he’d said it, staring blankly at her for a moment before the look on her face registered. Every damn time she thought he was making progress with him, he was quick to remind her of the question, ‘Why even bother?’  
  
He quickly plastered a crooked grin on his face. “What…? Oh, fuck. Uh. Yeah, s’fine. S’fine. Nah, looks good, uh! Hey, yellow shirt! Ain’t seen that one in a while, right!”  
  
“Let’s just go, please,” she said coldly, leaning down to tie her shoes and not look at him. Forget Lucas and his simultaneous brilliance and stupidity, she had to focus.  
  
Today was the day she was finally heading over to the lab. Lucas was taking her to meet his company contacts there. ‘The Connections’ he called them, which sounded a little fake to her, but likely whatever company was in this deep shit and this interested in whatever Eveline was, they probably weren’t strictly legal in the first place. Bioweaponry had been deemed too dangerous to research for a reason, yet there was one sitting in the house just across the yard, and Lucas and his company were going to be studying that beastly thing that was pretending to be both an old woman and a little girl.  
  
And she… Well, she had no choice but to help them, if it meant she got to keep living and to find a way out of this.  
  
Lucas frowned but merely shrugged, pulling his hood up and leading her to the metal door that blocked the way to the main exits. She’d thought of bolting a few times after being freed from her chain, she could admit that. But she knew she wouldn’t get far. Not with Evie’s infection still in her blood or the other Bakers or monsters roaming the grounds. Plus, Lucas had been watching her, and seeing that she hadn’t tried to flee had seemed to endear her to him further, on account of her good behavior. She was very good at good behavior, after all. She could follow the rules and she could play along… to a point.  
  
For now, she seemed content to just follow after him, holding a little battered briefcase full of papers in both arms. He led her on through, down the stairs and across a balcony where a few Molded were wandering aimlessly down in the barn area below, groaning and gurgling softly. Vivee suppressed a shudder and quickened her pace, hurrying after him as they exited into the yard proper.  
  
Lucas paused and looked about, thrusting an arm out and bringing her to a sudden stop. “Shit, the ol’ man’s out here. C’mere, get up on me all cuddly-like, we’re just going for a little walk. If he sees us, she sees us. Don’t fuckin’ say anything, we’re just passin’ on through.”  
  
Vivee glanced up at him with some disbelief, but didn’t protest when he draped an arm around her, pulling her in tight against his side, until she could feel every scrawny bone of his ribs under his hoodie. She made herself look inconspicuous, strategically putting an arm around his waist and putting her briefcase out of sight. A quick peek around Lucas soon saw the reason for his caution. His father, Jack, was standing in the yard next to a billowing firepit. A large pile of bodies had been stacked up in a pile; what looked like a cow carcass, at least two human cadavers, and piles of belongings, now being blackened and burnt all together.  
  
The Baker patriarch had his back to them, the gray smoke seeping around him adding to his eerie nature. But they passed him on by, and Vivee dared just a brief glance back to watch him lift a pitchfork and stab at one of the bodies, positioning them to burn. He was muttering to himself…talking to Evie probably, as he carried on his gruesome tasks. But he seemed to take little notice of his son, nor the girl attached to his side.  
  
They walked like that until they were out of his sight and well into the forest proper, on a muddy path that was barely a path at all, with her boots squishing into the swampy soil. Lucas seemed to relax once they were out of range of the house, breathing in and uttering a loud sigh. “He was always a mean sunnuvabitch, but Evie did a fuckin’ number on him, I’ll give ‘er that.”  
  
“What about Marguerite?” Vivee asked, casting another glance back at the rapidly disappearing shape of the house as the branches swallowed it up. “Sometimes it seems like she…I don’t know, like she’s still trying to be nice almost, but it’s not working right.”  
  
Her words caused Lucas to pause mid-step, and for half a moment his eyes almost looked far away. “Momma was…She was…she was all right, I guess,” he said carefully. “She tried to fight it at first, but got punished for it real bad.” His gaze hardened. “Now she’s got nothin’ left in the head and she’s not momma anymore, just another doll for Eveline. Don’t bother with her, it won’t help. Same woulda happened to me if it weren’t for my new pals-”  
  
“Lucas…”  
  
“What?” he snapped, a little harshly.  
  
“It’s hard to walk,” she said, and he blinked down at her owlishly, realizing he was still clutching her into his side tightly enough to smother her.  
  
He released her, letting her straighten up and walk normally, as she brought the suitcase back in front of her. They walked on in mostly silence, save for the crackle of branches and twigs under their feet, following the footpath until she saw the dilapidated ruins of some sort of industrial building; a rusted metal tower twisted into the air and clipped off at the top, looming over a burnt-down husk of a larger building that must have housed the entryway to the mines.  
  
Lucas nodded to it in a rather proud manner, motioning her to follow him as he slid down an embankment, sneakers sloshing in dirty mud at the bottom. As with so many things, he didn’t seem to notice nor care, approaching the metal tower and the little elevator sitting in its cradle. “Pretty snazzy place, huh? This here is Abercrombie, an old salt mine, been in ruins for years after all them accidents. Think it was that half of it flooded n’ the other half burnt down. But that’s what you get for trying to mine in a Dulvey swamp. Still, enough tunnels in there t’have you wandering blind for years unless you got a map. And we’ve set up shop in part of ‘em. C’mon.”  
  
She opted to take the long path around and save her shoes from the muck, traveling around instead of through as he watched her impatiently and muttered about being ‘so fussy’. But after a moment she hopped over the sludge and joined him, briefcase jostling a little as she stood before the rickety looking elevator.  
  
“Is it safe?” she asked warily.  
  
“Heh. ‘Safe’? This place? Ain’t you just precious. Even if it’s not, worst that can happen is you’ll get splattered and have a nasty time healin’ it up. You keep forgettin’, we’re not like normal people anymore. We’re better than them now,” he replied, unlocking an electrical cabinet nearby and throwing a large switch with a grunt.  
  
She still was not comfortable using Eveline’s gifts, not to the point of casual mutilation like the rest of them. She had been nigh traumatized by removing her own foot, whereas Lucas could shrug off getting violently maimed like it was nothing. The idea of getting splattered into mush at the bottom of a mining pit didn’t seem to phase him in the least. Not the most comforting answer to be sure, but as a static hum filled the air and the lights on the elevator flickered on, a little thrill of excitement accompanied its activation, like a little child looking at a fairground ride instead of a rusted mineshaft lift.  
  
Soon she might meet other people. Sane people. Her fellow scientists and researchers would be here, and they could get her out. She just had to meet them and impress them and explain that she wasn’t like Lucas or the Bakers, not a crazy person, just an idiot who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and had been stuck in that wrong place for months afterward. If she played her cards carefully, she might be able to get out of this disease and mold-infested swamp without Lucas or Eveline ever noticing she was gone.  
  
Lucas joined her in the elevator, and he punched the power button as the whole structure jolted and metal cords screeched above them, lowering them slowly into the pits below. The black and brown of the dirt walls soon turned to gray and white, glistening with crystals of salt. Perhaps they were deposits from an inland sea that had long ago dried up into the shallow marshes, though she could not imagine swamp salt being of any great quality. Combined with Lucas’s information about the frequent accidents in this place, it was easy to see why it had been abandoned.  
  
“Do I need to know any names? What about what I’m working on? Who am I going to answer to?” She sounded just a little breathless already, belying her excitement more than she’d wished. She needed to keep it together, keep it professional.  
  
He snorted another laugh, chewing on a fingernail and not trying to keep it professional at all. “Vivee Girl, the only name you’re gonna need is mine. We got some projects going on we can use you for. And you’re answering to the same one everyone else is answerin’ to…Me!” He puffed out his scrawny chest a little. “Don’t need a fancy degree or a tie t’be the big boss, ya know. Just get your hands on some black mold instead of a black suit, and they’ll be busting down your door with offers.”  
  
“I’ll try to keep that in mind,” she deadpanned as the elevator continued to descend steadily.  
  
The air became cooler and dryer, losing some of the moist heat of the afternoon in a Louisiana bayou. The lights above her hummed and flickered occasionally, and she prayed in silence that they would not go out and leave her alone in the dark with him. But the cables continued to grind, and at last there was a boom as they hit the bottom, and the doors scraped open. Past them lay the tunnels of the old salt mine, strung with old extension cords and bare bulbs to light their way. The place was still littered with security doors and grates and other equipment as Lucas led her forward once more. She paused to look into an old cart, curiously inspecting the surface of some dark liquid that she couldn’t tell was mold or fetid water or something else.  
  
“It is kind of neat down here,” she admitted. “A little creepy, but neat.”  
  
“Yeah, I get that a lot,” he replied, turning a corner with her as she was greeted with the sight of the lab proper.  
  
It was…not really what she was expecting. To say it was ‘makeshift’ was doing it a kindness. It had proper walls and a ceiling at least, made out of metal and cinderblocks, but it was a crude space. And the lab equipment was equally mishmash. She could recognize some legitimate equipment, scattered along tables and on shelves. But some of the lab had been jerry-rigged with garbage into some semblance of whatever they needed. Household air conditioning tubing led into a tipped-over refrigerator, liquid inside bubbling away as it kept some sort of storage container cooled within. She heard shuffling and squeaking, and saw on another side of the room that there was a collection of pet carriers, holding different animals. She saw a crow, more than a few rats, a cat, and a small dog; probably test animals for the biochems at work here. Poor things…  
  
Swallowing down her pity, she made herself turn away, still hurrying after Lucas as he pushed open a heavy metal sealed door. This room, larger and kept cleaner, was a little more like what she was used to. The walls had been draped with plastic sheeting, and there was more tables and equipment she could recognize at a glance. And best of all, there were people. Actual people. Two men in labcoats and gloves looked up from their tables, and one of them started to remove his gear as soon as he saw them enter.  
  
Lucas grinned, but still put his arm back around her in a rather unnecessary way as she tried to move forward to them. Clearing his throat, he over dramatically gestured to the man with a whirl of his wrist. “Vivian, this here’s Dr. Abadi. It’s Abadi, ain’t it? Some kinda Arabic name, I dunno. He’s actin’ as a sort of…assistant of research here.”  
  
The man’s smile grew just a bit strained, but he merely nodded at Lucas. “Thank you, Mr. Baker…I am Dr. Abadi, Head of Analysis. You must be Ms. Murray? One of Mr. Baker’s abductees and Eveline’s attempts at mate selection?”  
  
That took her a bit off guard. She opened and closed her mouth a few times before saying as carefully as possible. “That is…not _really_ how I would have put it?”  
  
He glanced down to his tablet, scrolling through something she couldn’t see. “It says here that you were failed attempt number three at setting up Mr. Baker with a romantic partner-”  
  
Lucas cleared his throat loudly, making a quick cutting motion across his neck to signal a stop. “Okaaaaay! Wow, you science types sure are good at basic socializin’! Way t’go! Vivian here turned out to be a biochemistry lab assistant before I conked her on the head with a chair leg. Fate has it, huh? She’s been helpin’ me with some of those on-site chores that you boys can’t really get to, after it turned out Eveline took a random likin’ to her. Right, Viv?”  
  
“Failed attempt number three?” she mouthed at him, giving him a very hard look. Turning back to Dr. Abadi, she straightened herself up and resumed her professional airs. “Erm, yes. Vivian Murray, I worked mainly in pharmaceuticals with Univ-”  
  
Dr. Abadi just nodded, still fiddling with his tablet. “We’ve looked you up. And we agree with Lucas that it has been helpful to have someone with basic documentation knowledge who has her boots on the ground, so to speak. While we’re still setting things up here, we have been beholden to the information from the Bakers’ own experimentations under…less than ideal conditions. We’re still bringing in equipment for sterile environs here, but until then, we think you can still be of use to our data collection on the E-type infestation progress.”  
  
Vivee nodded along with his words, but felt a tinge of disappointment. Dr. Abadi hardly seemed interested in her, condescending at best. And the other doctor in the room hadn’t even bothered looking up at her. But perhaps with a bit more time, she could approach him alone, or find someone else who could help her.  
  
“We’re going to take your readings and biometrics for now. Step into the next two rooms down the hall and disrobe.” Dr. Abadi said, before turning away back to his work.  
  
She wasn’t sure she had heard him correctly. “Erm…pardon?”  
  
“As a more recent carrier of the E-type virus directly from its sentient source, we’re going to monitor your medical progress, just as with Mr. Baker here. Step into the next rooms and disrobe so we can begin, please. We already have a lot to do here.” He waved her vaguely in the direction of a door.  
  
She looked to Lucas in disbelief, but he had already wandered off. At a loss, she started edging towards the door he’d gestured to, peeking inside. Inside was a long hall, the mine tunnels still being retrofitted for their new purposes. At the end of the hall was an open door and another room, and there was nowhere else to go but forward as she walked in. Her heart gave a little leap.  
  
Inside, was a stark white tile room with a single metal bench in the center. A woman sat inside with her legs crossed, looking rather impatient. She was nearly as pale as the labcoat she wore, tall and skinny with her yellow-blond hair pulled into a ponytail that made her look that much more severe. She looked up as Vivee entered, adjusting her glasses primly.  
  
Vivee approached with a hopeful smile. “H-hello! I’m Vivian? I was wondering if you could…help me, maybe?” Her heart fluttered just a bit. Maybe another woman would take her seriously, after being held captive and literally in chains for so long. It had been such a long time since anyone had really shown her any sympathy, beyond that time Marguerite had rescued her and promptly thrown her into a freezer.  
  
“Dr. Eleanor Crane. You may hand me your clothes and documents while we decontaminate you before your study.” She answered, with slightly less kindness than that time Marguerite had thrown her in the freezer. “Your undergarments too. And I hope you have better personal hygiene than…certain others, of that household.”  
  
“Er…Right here? Now?”  
  
“Standard procedure, Ms. Murray. We don’t want our readings thrown off by common filth. Your clothes, please. I’m sure we can speak after.” Dr. Crane stood, motioning for Vivee to sit. The woman was harsh, to be sure, but she at least had enough decency to turn away, fiddling with her phone.  
  
Vivee looked around, especially to the large, dark glass panel on one wall that looked like it was two-way glass. “Ah…is there…privacy? Is there anyone in that room-”  
  
“There shouldn’t be.”  
  
This was not at all going how she had hoped. But this Dr. Crane had at least mentioned talking after getting this done. Biting her lip unhappily, Vivian sat down on the bench and began peeling off all the clothes she had so painstakingly washed for today. Shuffling out of her jeans and shirt, she folded them neatly and placed them on top of her shoes and socks…soon followed reluctantly by the ragged brassiere and panties. She covered herself as best she could with one arm across her breasts, knees clamped together as she sat nude on her bench.  
  
Dr. Crane calmly slipped on a glove, gathering up the pile of clothes and sliding them into a paper bag. “Please follow the instructions as I give them and we’ll begin,” she said, leaving the naked girl looking perplexed in the room as she exited through another door, clanking shut behind her.

* * *

  
  
Vivian’s clothes were left on a nearby table for later as Dr. Crane exited, looping around to the room behind the dark glass. To her consternation, it was occupied. Lucas Baker was sitting there, drinking a soda and watching the proceedings like it was a late night special. His only saving grace was that he didn’t have his hand down his pants, although she wouldn’t have been surprised.  
  
Dr. Crane frowned openly at him, motioning at him to get his feet down from the damn control table. “Mr. Baker. You are not required to oversee these proceedings…”  
  
He didn’t even look her way, watching the girl on the bench while she sat still trying to keep herself covered. He tilted back his soda, bug-eyed blue gaze still intent on her. “Just here t’make sure you treat my secretary real nice-like on her first day in the real biz, doc. Heh. Look at her. She thought you were gonna help her out, almost looked like she was gonna cry there for a sec after you left. Got all dolled up and everything just for you lot, didn’t have the heart to tell her about this part. Hehehe.”  
  
“These are standard procedures, Mr. Baker. I know of your _proclivities_ for women in certain situations, but this is a place of knowledge-”  
  
“How about you leave my fuckin’ proclivities back in my bedroom and move ahead with the knowledge then, doc. Get on with it, but be gentle on the jets, ya know. Girl’s got all the fortitude of a wet paper bag. Kinda feels weird callin’ a girl a pussy, but even if she’s got one, she also kinda _is_ one, and-”  
  
“Aren’t you needed elsewhere?” Dr. Crane said sternly, more of a hard suggestion than a question.  
  
“Hey hey hey now, what kind of boss would I be if I didn’t oversee my girl’s introduction to the company, doc?” he sneered. “Unless you got a promotion I wasn’t fuckin’ informed of, I think you ought to go ahead and get started. Time’s a wastin’.”  
  
Dr. Crane thinned her already thin lips, pushing up her glasses, but stepped forward with no more protest. Pressing the button on the intercom, she announced to the other room, “We’re starting now, she’s ready. Begin decontamination for study.” and caused Vivian to almost physically jump, startling at the static buzz. She jumped a lot harder when the panels on the ceiling opened up, and the nozzles within started dousing her with thick gray mist. She was soaked within moments, coughing and sputtering and trying to wipe at her eyes.  
  
Lucas leaned forward a little, apparently keen on the flash of breasts she displayed when she did. Not much to work with there, no, but he was good at making do. Sharp little nipples too, he liked those, had always liked seeing glimpses of them beneath her shirt when she slept without a bra, but they were kind of pretty to see in the flesh. Shame he was here at work and in mixed company, or he might have just locked the door and tugged one out to poor Vivian getting decontaminated and ruining all that make-up and work she’d put in for today. Although Dr. Crane proved to be, as ever, a mighty bitch of a boner-killer with the way she was looking at him. Goddamn science-types they kept sending here, always acted like they were better than him, except for Vivee.  
  
He scowled at her, but she ignored him and pressed another button to signal the next person into the room, dressed in a light white poofy hazmat suit and bearing a spray canister. Vivian scooted to the very edge of her bench, and for a moment Lucas hoped that she would try to run, or fight, or do something rash. But she sat there like a good damn girl while she got sprayed down with yet another substance, head lowered and hair drooping like a curtain. More disappointment when she was asked to stand and did, but kept her hand covering between her legs like she could tell he was watching. Damn, almost.  
  
Another round of the nozzle mists from up above did the trick, and she was offered a paper robe and a towel before the man in the suit led her out of the room and down another hallway. Lucas sat back in his chair and downed the last of his soda. Dr. Crane’s voice was harsh and grating, like sandpaper against his damn hard-on.  
  
“Your show is over, Mr. Baker. Perhaps go help Dr. Abadi with his latest samples while I see to your assistant’s biometrics?”  
  
“Aaaaay! Since ya asked so nicely, doc. Remember what we talked about. Don’t show her any of the high-level stuff yet. Girl’s gonna be freaked enough when I get her home after you’re done the poking and prodding.”  
  
Dr. Crane lifted a brow at him. “Is this your particular brand of concern? Hm…Remember, if you decide to tire of her, you are not to let Eveline destroy her. A B-class virus carrier would be of much more worth to us here, and our superiors would pay you handsomely for a proper vivisection of a-”  
  
He turned on her a little fiercely, close enough that she could smell the stale soda on his breath. “You let me worry about that. I decide on what t’do with her. And right now, she’s gonna be helping _me_ , so I can help _you_. I’ll be the one to fuckin’ tell you if that changes.”  
  
“Very well, Mr. Baker,” she answered, unimpressed as ever. “We’ll be taking samples from her today, and I’ll make a place for her in research assistance. With her experience, she may be better at documenting Eveline’s progress scientifically, rather than your…unique, way of reporting.”  
  
Lucas glared, unable to stop the manic way his chest rose and fell, the huffing and puffing of frustration that he had never been able to hide. “You’re gettin’ real gawdamn close to getting on my nerves, doc. The Company is payin’ you to assist me, unless you feel like you and your little crew here wanna go meet Eveline yourself? I could introduce you, tell her where your little playground is, here. She’s always lookin’ for new friends, after all, my little sister…”  
  
Dr. Crane frowned at him before standing, taking the briefcase of new notes and papers with her. “That…will not be necessary, Mr. Baker. Please go assist Dr. Abadi while I take care of things here. Ms. Murray will be returned to you shortly.”  
  
The man curled his colorless lips at her, but seemed satisfied that his position was no longer being challenged. With a last warning glare, he skulked back out towards the front labs. Dr. Crane breathed out, adjusting her ponytail even tighter on the back of her head and pushing her glasses back up her nose. Clicking open the briefcase, she began shuffling through this week’s files. It held the usual; progress reports on the E-type manifestations, the movements and activities of the Baker family hosts, and the victims and different Molded that still survived in the containment area.  
  
But at the back of the papers, she found a handful of loose legal pad papers quietly shuffled in. There, in Vivian’s handwriting, seemed to be a collection of personal notes. ‘Subject V’, she called herself. Hardly original, but it worked. The girl had had the werewithal to start recording her own infection; including notes on her wounds and healing, her captivity and growing sense of paranoia and unwanted thoughts, and a few too many notes on her apparently ‘complicated’ relationship with Mr. Baker. They included incidences of his abuse and threats against her, to hopeful little anecdotes about their bonding and time spent together, hateful little screeds that had been half scribbled and blotted out, and the insecurity that came with her being unsure if any of her thoughts actually came from her own brain, or the E-virus’s influences.  
  
Some of it read like a young lady’s diary, but there was more to it than that. It recorded things that Mr. Baker had been conveniently leaving out, or ‘forgetting’ to tell them, and a firsthand account of things at the estate that did not come from Mr. Baker’s diseased and frankly intolerable mind.  
  
Dr. Crane allowed herself a very brief and very private little smile. If the vivisection option was out, then perhaps this Vivian could be of use to them another way…


	7. Chapter 7

“Stop! Please stop!”  
  
“Keep calm, Ms. Murray, only a little more to go.”  
  
“You said it was just going to be a biometric screening!”  
  
She was held between two of the lab assistants, who struggled to keep her still while Dr. Crane went about her work. Apparently the doctor’s idea of a basic screening differed from hers. Vivee had expected to be weighed and measured, her blood to be drawn, her blood pressure taken, her heart rate checked, that sort of thing. Dr. Crane’s ‘screening’ had included blood and plasma and tissue being drawn out of her in great amounts, a hole drilled into her femur for bone marrow samples, and now a spinal tap. The pain radiated up her spinal column and the nerve paths all the way up to her brain, almost blinding her as she grimaced and squirmed, tears running from the corners of her eyes.  
  
“Just a bit…more…There, I’ve retrieved what I need. Take these to Dr. Abadi immediately.” With no comfort to offer, Dr. Crane bundled up the box of samples and handed it to one of the assistants, who whisked it away back in the direction they had come from.  
  
Vivee groaned unhappily, starting to draw her bloodstained paper gown back down. But Dr. Crane held up a hand and stilled it before she could.  
  
“Wait. Begin visual recording, please. And Ms. Murray, I want you to focus on healing this specific trauma. Please tell us when you begin.”  
  
“…What?”  
  
Dr. Crane lifted a brow at her impatiently. “Tell us when you focus your regeneration abilities on the afflicted area. Begin when ready.”  
  
Focusing? She’d never really legitimately tried to focus any of her abilities before, nor did she have any idea how they really worked. Her body healed up on its own, usually when she slept. She thought of telling the doctors that but she was not in the mood to make this last any longer than it already had. If they wanted her to focus, she would try focus. She huffed in a rather comically loud, deep breath… and nothing seemed to happen.  
  
How was one supposed to order a body to heal itself? Bodies were, by nature, autonomous things. She could order it to do certain things with a minute amount of control, like telling it to hold a breath, or pee, and she could even make herself cry if she really focused and thought of sad things. But she had no idea how to tell her body to do something like that on command, any more than she could tell her own heart to stop beating.  
  
“Ms. Murray?” Dr. Crane said again, with a bit of irritation. “Begin when ready.”  
  
“I…I don’t know how?” she admitted after another moment. “Is there something I do?”  
  
The assistant slowly lowered his recording device as the doctor stared at her subject over her glasses.”What do you do?” she echoed, “Do you mean to say that you have been in the very heart of the infection vector, carrying the virus gifted by the sentient source, and living with an A-class carrier…for months…and you have, not once, utilized your E-type mutations? At all? You have utterly no knowledge of them or their activation?”  
  
“Why would I? I don’t even like to think about them. I’m not even supposed to be here!”  
  
Dr. Crane slowly removed her glasses, pinching the bridge of her nose as if stricken by a sudden headache. Primly replacing her lenses, she simply held up a finger and stepped away, flicking on her communicator. “Mr. Baker.”  
  
Vivee pulled her medical gown back down to cover herself at that name, listening. She couldn’t hear Lucas’s answers, but was instead treated to a very one-sided conversation that was clearly about her. The woman did not sound entirely thrilled, not even looking Vivee’s way and, she wondered if this was how animals felt at the vet, listening to their betters speak and make medical decisions all without their consent.  
  
“Mr. Baker, you did not tell me that your assistant was completely unaware of her condition at any real level,” Dr. Crane said, a little snappily, waiting for his response. “…Need I remind you that she is still viable for the other option-” She pulled the communicator away from her ear as Lucas’s voice rose on the other end, loud enough that she could almost make out a few words. Dr. Crane frowned and replaced it after his tirade was over. “You said she was a B-class, and her results have been suitably high but…Yes. Yes…However, I’ve seen lab rats with better understanding of the molded abilities…No. Absolutely not. Mr. Baker, that is not the priority here…Perhaps if she underwent a stress test…?” The long-suffering doctor pulled her comm away as another storm of cursing started up on the other end.  
  
Vivian felt an uncustomary prickle of anger and resentment. She shouldn’t have been offended really; of _course_ she hadn’t bothered with utilizing Eveline’s ‘gifts’ when she simply saw them as an infection or a curse. Surely the scientists here would understand that. But the way Dr. Crane spoke about her, it was raising her hackles and she was almost a little smug that Lucas was giving her a hard time. She eyed the doctor as she approached once more, waving her assistants away and out of the room, looking over her tablet and not paying much attention to her subject.  
  
“Mr. Murray, we are still going to salvage this situation. It has come to my attention that you have been monitoring your own health and progression before we even requested it of you. This is good. Let’s try to stay on that path. You’ll be returned to the estate with Mr. Baker, and from there I expect frequent reports on exactly how you will try to learn manual control of these…shall we call them, ‘talents’, from the virus.” She jotted something down in her notes.  
  
Vivee seized her chance, pulling herself off the table in a rattle of paper. “Wait. Could we wait for just a moment. Please, I’ve done everything you’ve said. But I’m not supposed to be here, I was kidnapped. That man, Lucas Baker, he murdered my friend and kidnapped me, and I’ve barely survived.”  
  
“…We are aware of your circumstances,” Dr. Crane replied flatly.  
  
“But you’ve cut off the neural control, you know how to stem the infection. I could just…I could leave, right? Eveline would take ages to notice I’m gone, and Lucas…” She trailed off a bit, a pang of something or other roiling in her gut, but she shook it away quickly. “Lucas never wanted me here either, he’s told me as much, and often. You know how to get things in and out of this place…Please, can’t you get me out? I just want to go home.”  
  
Dr. Crane sighed, pushing her glasses up once more. “Ms. Murray, I am not at leisure to talk about such things at this point in time. Perhaps…” She turned her cold gaze to the girl, her visage as severe and pinched as ever. “Perhaps if you show us that you are dedicated to our research here, beyond merely being one of its subjects? Perhaps if you show my superiors that you are a worthy addition to our bottom line, they might be convinced. But for now, you have an assignment to do.”  
  
“That’s not fair…This isn’t right!”  
  
“Vivian,” Dr. Crane leaned down and pretended to adjust the girl’s medical gown. Her voice went low and cautious, frowning at her. “We can’t speak about that. Not here. We are being monitored. But I will try to talk to you…later. Just try to maintain.”  
  
Vivee eyed her suspiciously. Just because she was a bit of a coward, it did not make her a fool. Dr. Crane was no more trustworthy than the rest of them here, looking at her like she was just a…a thing, to be poked and prodded and taken apart. But they still had resources that she simply did not, and she couldn’t afford to burn what might be her only bridge out of here. Even if she somehow concocted her own chemicals to break the rest of Eveline’s hold, she needed their labs to do it. So she just swallowed down her distrust and her irritation, and muttered a little, “…Okay.”  
  
Dr. Crane nodded in approval before handing the girl her clothes back, once more turning away and tapping into her tablet so Vivee could dress in private. “Your method of taking notes, by the way, is a much needed improvement compared to the documentation before. So please, do continue taking notes…on _everything_ you think pertinent to us.” She turned to give the girl another meaningful look. “That would most helpful to us all, Ms. Murray.”  
  
“I…will try,” Vivee answered quietly, pulling her shirt down and wincing as it brushed the bandage where they had punctured part of her belly for a tissue sample.  
  
“Very well. I believe that is enough for today. Dr. Abadi will have some new documents for you to fill out, and Mr. Baker has his new assignments. It was very nice to meet you, Ms. Murray. I’m sure you and I will talk again…very soon.”  
  
Before Vivee could even answer her, the doctor stepped away without even looking at her, sensible heels clicking sharply on the cold floor. The Connections, whoever they might have been, were not coming to her rescue as she had hoped. The cavalry was not coming today, probably not any other day. Dr. Crane might still be worth speaking to, but clearly she had not fulfilled whatever vague requirements expected of her. She was still very much on her own, as far as that went. And her only ‘companion’, if he could even be called that in this awful place, was Lucas. She wrinkled her nose unhappily but took the chance to pull on her socks and shoes, her body still aching from the tests as she straightened her throbbing spine and headed back towards the main lab area.  
  
“Viv! S’about time! Take this!” Lucas’s voice rang out before she could even walk through the door.  
  
A duffel bag went hurtling straight at her head, and she barely managed to catch it. “Hey!”  
  
“They done pokin’ you? Heh, bet you feel like shit.”  
  
“You could have warned me…” she grumbled, hefting the heavy bag over her shoulder and taking the little suitcase as he shoved that at her too, loaded up like a damn pack mule.  
  
“Where’s the fun in that?” he snickered, looking over his phone. “You ready t’go? I got everything I need.”  
  
“I guess.”  
  
Dr. Abadi waved them back through the lab, as the main entrance unsealed with a loud hiss and they were left back in the cold, damp confines of the old salt mine proper. The smell of the swamp flooded back in where there had once been the smell of sterile cleanser, and as they boarded the mineshaft elevator to head back to the surface, the sweltering heat of the Louisiana swamp grew stronger and stronger the higher they rose back above ground.  
  
For a while they just walked, listening to the hum of insects and the far-off shriek of a crow. With a little glance backward, Lucas stretched his spine with a series of cracking vertebrae, looking down at her. “Big fuckin’ first day, huh? They talk to you?”  
  
“Not really,” she said, and that was no lie. “They barely spoke to me at all, just shoved me in one lab room after another for tests and samples and interviews. That Dr. Crane is really…she’s…”  
  
“A huge be-yitch?”  
  
“She’s very _severe_ ,” Vivee replied primly, always driven to be diplomatic. “I don’t think she was very impressed with me at all. Disappointed, maybe? She kept calling me a Class B, but said I wasn’t a very good example of it.”  
  
Lucas shrugged. “Y’are. Least, that’s how they classify us for all their goddamn annoyin’ paperwork they’re always doin’. I’m Class A, just me n’ mine. The first ones she infected with her Gifts and chose as her fuckin’ freaky family. Now you, you’re kinda…second-generation, so to speak. Connected t’her through me. You’re a B…Heh, yeah, you’re a huge b, sometimes.”  
  
“Yeah, well…” she paused, but he grinned down at her and didn’t seem particularly dangerous for the moment, so she answered back, “More like A for asshole.”  
  
“Whoa, Viv, might burn yourself if you keep spittin’ that fire.”  
  
“Oh, screw you.”  
  
“Promise?”  
  
They were teasing and laughing and there it was again…that little alarming sensation of familiarity and domesticity, the sudden realization that things seemed almost normal; that she and Lucas were okay with one another and that this wasn’t all some giant deadly farce she was currently trapped in. That little period where she could crack jokes or yell back at him, when she wasn’t just his prisoner or ‘secretary’. When it almost felt like they were just roommates, or even-  
  
No. She had to get a hold of herself. Stockholm Syndrome was a real thing, and she couldn’t begin to think of this life as anything even approaching normality. She shook her head clear of foggy, mold-addled thoughts, coughing a little and hefting her bags.  
  
“Anyway, she wants me to learn more about these mutations I’m supposed to have, and record my progress. Maybe that will make them take me seriously? But…I’ll admit, I don’t even know where to start. I tried to ‘focus’ the mold and nothing happened?”  
  
He snorted a bit, one wide nostril flaring as he stepped over a gnarled root. “Well you been fightin’ against using it for the entire time you been here, of course you don’t know shit about how it works. Lissen, I can help you out but you ain’t gonna like it. But you ain’t gonna learn anything by pussyfootin’ around your gifts no more. S’nothing delicate about it, you gotta learn to brute force this shit. It’s the only way t’handle Evie’s shit, is force it.”  
  
“Who wouldn’t be a little scared of your methods?” she pointed out. “And I’m not sure I can just force it?”  
  
“Tough titties, girl. You wanna learn to use it, then you just let ol’ Lucas teach you some of his favorite tricks of th’ trade. I’ll show you back at the house after we unload the stuff.”  
  
“What’s in here anyway?” She looked down at the bulging, heavy duffel. “Is it okay if I look?”  
  
“Knock yourself out. S’just supplies.”  
  
She unzipped part of the duffel bag and peeked in. No wonder it was so heavy; it was full of his favorite food and supplies just like he’d said. There were cans of more cheap pastas and condensed soups, toilet paper, powdered donuts, frozen dinners, cookies, and… Her eyes lit up a bit. There, amongst all the preservatives and potential botulism, was a color that did not come from chemical dyes; a single fresh green apple.  
  
Lucas glanced over as she paused, lifting a brow and shrugging. “Oh, yeah, you were always bitchin’ about scurvey or whatever so I told ‘em to bring you somethin’ to shut you up. Have at it.”  
  
She never thought she’d be so damn happy to see a simple apple in her life. She picked it out of the bag, holding it in both hands and just staring down at it in an almost dreamy way. The flesh felt soft and she dug her fingernails into it, feeling it give way to the wet fruit beneath. In a strangely hushed tone, she mumbled a little, “Thanks, Lucas.”  
  
“Eh.”  
  
She brought it to her lips, curling them apart until she set her front teeth against it, biting down with a hearty crunch. God, that tasted good. It tasted so, so good. Something real and fresh and out of place, just like her, in this place of rot and mold and death. The juice dribbled out from the pierced flesh of the fruit, down onto her tongue, and it was sweet and sour and perfect. She pstopped there on the little footpath, her teeth severing the bite of apple and just holding it there in her mouth, afraid to swallow it because then it would disappear.  
  
He walked a few steps ahead of her, noticed she didn’t follow, and then turned to give her a perplexed look. He was probably about to snap at her, knowing him, but the rather orgasmic expression on her face over the simple taste of a fucking bite of apple gave him pause. For a moment, it seemed like she’d even forgotten about him. She cradled the fruit in a covetous way, pressing her lips to the ragged edges of the bite and sucking out its juice.  
  
Couldn’t help but watch the way she did that, before he stepped toward her and held out a hand. “The fuck? Gimme a bite.”  
  
Tearing herself from her reverie, she frowned at him. “Mine.”  
  
“Jesus, just let me have a bite. Gettin’ all greedy on me after I give you anything, s’bound to give a man pause if you want any more.”  
  
Very reluctantly, still standing apart from him, she offered out the bitten apple in one hand. In some warped way it might have resembled a scene right out of the Adam and Eve mythos, although this time it was the man trying to demand the temptation from the woman. But then again, everything was warped and wrong and backwards in this place. His long, bony fingers plucked it out of her grasp, and he looked down at it, at the bitten area under the green, white-yellow and not yet starting to brown. With a shrug, he set his lips just where hers had been letting them linger and even running his cold tongue along the inside of the apple’s bite wound.  
  
He bit down, shearing down a little piece of the apple for himself. But it tasted of nothing special to him, and the fruit covered up what should have tasted like her. So he shrugged and spat it out onto the ground even as she glared at him, and tossed it back at her chest. “Eh, s’allright.”  
  
With a little fumble, she caught it, still glaring at him. “Don’t waste it!”  
  
“Whatever. Just eat it and hurry up back inside or I’m locking you out and watching when dad chases you down with the pitchfork.” He turned and started back to the house, leaving her literally holding the bags.  
  
But at least she had her apple. Maybe she could make it last? She even briefly considered trying to find the bite that Lucas had spat out, but even though he fed her on a steady diet of crap, she wasn’t yet that desperate. She resolved to just enjoy the rest of it as she could. Setting down the heavy duffel, she leaned against a nearby tree and kept an eye out on the yard of the Bakers’ compound before her.  
  
Every bite was tiny and savored, nibbling and tearing at the peel as she sat listening to the scream of crickets and cicadas. The mosquitoes no longer bothered her, her blood so poisoned with mold that they avoided her altogether, instead buzzing in droves around the old house where Lucas said his mother kept all her ‘pets’. The whole ranch was so decrepit and rotten looking that she could not imagine a time that it might have been anything but. Lucas had told her that when his parents were still his parents, they kept the place up as best they could, but even at its best, he had always hated the place. And that, she could understand. She hated it here too.  
  
She was distracted from her thoughts when she saw a slight movement. Something…no, someone, was crawling from out of the fencing beneath the porch of the main house. Vivee jolted upright a little, clutching her apple as she watched. At first she thought it might have been a boy, but the more the figure emerged, she saw that it was a girl around her own age, possibly, with short-chopped hair. She was painfully thin and scrawny, with a stained white tank top and dirty jeans, and as she squirmed out from under the porch, she was holding a shopping bag.  
  
A prisoner, perhaps? Had someone managed to escape the Bakers’ grasp? Holy shit! She had to help them!  
  
Still holding her fruit, she straightened up and took a step forward. “Hey! Hey!”  
  
The woman looked startled, then positively panicked. She whirled around to face Vivian, and her eyes, their sockets darkened by shadows, shown with the same brilliant pale blue as Lucas’s own. Hell, she looked a lot like Lucas himself, somehow. And she was wearing the same clothes as the one and only other time Vivee had seen her, smoking outside the trailer that one evening when she had first been brought and chained in her captor’s apartment in the barn maze.  
  
Was this the fabled sister? Zoe?  
  
Whether or not it was Zoe, she wasn’t about to tell. Instead, she dropped her bag and bolted in an all out mad dash across the yard. Vivian started after her, calling, “Wait! Wait! I’m not with them! I’m not-”  
  
Zoe didn’t answer her, dashing with a speed that seemed too fast for a regular person, tearing across the yard in record time and wrenching open the door to the little travel trailer. Even across the whole yard, Vivian was fairly sure she could hear the click of locks and the scrape of fortifications, as the blinds slammed shut. She hurried after her all the same, pausing only when she was fairly certain she saw some kind of tripwire across the ground…Which made sense. If Zoe and the rest of her family did not get along, she had probably sequestered herself away with the same protections as Lucas did.  
  
She nixed the idea of knocking on the door, then, and instead lingered there on the perimeter around the little trailer. She couldn’t call out to her too loudly, and risk bringing attention from the Baker parents. But she still tried, in a voice only slightly louder than speaking volume, “Wait! Are you Zoe? If you’re Zoe, I’m not like them, I promise. I’m Vivian, Vivian Murray. I’m trapped here too. I just want to talk.”  
  
The insects continued shrieking in the background as she waited, but there was no answer. Just like Lucas and Dr. Crane and the Connections and everyone else in this fucking place, Zoe seemed to have no intentions of helping her out. Not that she could blame her, really. The girl had looked positively haunted, and had been ready to run for her life at a moment’s notice. She’d even abandoned her bag in the process.  
  
Frowning, Vivee moved back to check out said bag. It was an old shopping bag from some local grocery she’d never heard of, and inside was a small collection of dirty, scavenged cans, a tiny tin of coffee, some packs of cigarettes, and a bottle of green medicine. Likely she’d been scrounging supplies from inside the house somehow, though by the look of it, there wasn’t very much to be had. No wonder she’d been so bony looking. After all, she didn’t have a company supply drop backing her up like her fiendish brother did.  
  
Biting her lip, Vivee lifted up the bag and brought it back, carefully setting it in front of the little makeshift walkway. It looked like Zoe had enough problems of her own. Briefly dashing back to Lucas’s supply duffel, she picked out a can of Spaghetti-Os and a can of beans, and returned with them, depositing them into the rest of Zoe’s sparse food supply.  
  
And then she looked down at her apple.  
  
It had been left to the air for a few minutes now, and was starting to turn brown in the middle. A bit of clear, sweet juice still dribbled from the core though, only half gone.  
  
_God…Damnit…_  
  
Very reluctantly, having to swallow down her own desperately selfish want of it, she put the other half of the apple into the bag for the other woman. Maybe if she buttered up Lucas a bit, she could get more. Or perhaps if she played along with whatever the doctors wished of her, she could get more little favors. But if anyone needed the other half of that apple, it was the girl that had just fled for her life, away from her. And maybe, just maybe, it would show Zoe that she wasn’t like the others.  
  
Couldn’t linger here too long. Zoe’s caution was well-understood. The other Bakers and the occasional Molded still patrolled the grounds, and Lucas was still waiting for her.  
  
Grabbing up her own duffel bag and leaving behind her apple, Vivee rushed back to the barn, unaware that inside the caravan, the ragged blinds had parted and a pair of bright, bright blue eyes were watching her go.  


* * *

  
  
Back in the barn, shutting the security gate that been left open for her, she heard the pounding of Lucas’s horrible music from deeper in the apartment. Ugh, for all the crap he gave her about her musicals, he sure had shitty taste in music himself. Rolling her eyes, she dropped the supplies off by the kitchen and deposited her briefcase full of yet more papers onto her couch.  
  
“Lucas? Hey, Lucas?” She called towards his open door. She still had never dared to go inside, had never even done anything but peek a glimpse of it through the open door, where the blue lights of all his computer equipment glowed with menace.  
  
No answer. Maybe he was working again and couldn’t hear her. So she shrugged and headed off to the bathroom. The decontamination had left her irritated and itchy and she needed to check on her drying clothes, and put more into the sink, and-  
  
She opened the door, and didn’t have time to react when Lucas was standing there just inside the entry, waiting for her. He lunged, his scrawny frame somehow always faster and more powerful than she gave him credit for, and she was taken off her feet in as he effectively clotheslined her with the force of his swinging arm. She blinked stupidly as she was suddenly airborne, and then her back, still not fully healed from the tissue-samples or the spinal tap, landed hard on the dirty tile floor. It hurt, yes, but it didn’t hurt nearly as much as the hunting knife that she realized he had stabbed into her shoulder in the process.  
  
With a shrieking howl, she reflexively swung a fist at his nose that he easily dodged, setting both hands on the knife and pushing down on it until it had ripped through her, clear down to the tile beneath. She was screaming and snotting and begging as usual, kicking and trying to get out from under him. But he straddled both legs her around her skinny waist and kept her down, finally sitting back up and yanking the blade back out of her. It was covered in the black-red molded blood of their kind, and left behind a nice and sufficiently gruesome wound that she clawed at and tried to cover with her good hand.  
  
And it seemed like even sweet little Vivee could get riled up if they got stabbed enough, just like anybody. She lay there, wet with tears and speckles of red and still trying to squirm away. “You asshole! YOU ASSHOLE! FUCK YOU! Why! Why!? Don’t! Please! I didn’t-”  
  
Still astride her smaller body, he leaned down over her, covering her mouth with one clammy hand, his fingers wrapping around her chin and denting into her cheeks even as he shushed her as soothingly as he could. “Hey, hey, heeeeey, fuck’s sake, stop squirrelin’ around. C’mawn, this ain’t nothing to people like us. Now stop screaming like a goddamn drama queen and take a look. Arright?”  
  
Her eyes rolled in panic, darting from his face, back to the bloody knife still held in his other hand. She coughed and whimpered when he released his crushing grip around her mouth, but didn’t scream. And she still watched him. So he showed off a little, tossing the knife with a little flip like he’d practiced so many times in his room, watching it spin about before the handle smacked back into his palm. He grinned down at her, just the two of them enjoying a fun game together, before flipping down his hoodie and waving the blade in front of her face. She hissed a breath, but her shriek a moment later was for a completely different reason, when he tightened his grip around the hunting knife and brought it slamming into the side of his own neck. It slid through, parting skin and muscle and veins and everything in its path, until it scraped the bone.  
  
Red spray from his artery spit all over her, and his voice was a thick gurgle as he leaned over her, nearly shouting in her face and grinning like the fucking maniac he was. “See! See, this ain’t nothing! Vivee Girl, it’s high time you learn what ya really are now ! And you, you’re one of mine!” He threw the knife aside with a clatter, grasping onto both her hands and shoving her arms up above her head, listening to her breath quicken at the motion. “Aw, don’t be shy, now. S’just another game, at the end of the day. Knew you wouldn’t let me show ya any other way.”  
  
She uttered a little keening whine, her shoulder blossoming with pain as her arms were stretched up, hiking her shirt up and leaving his rough khakis to scrape her skin as he sat straddling her belly. Fucking madman. “Lucas…”  
  
“Nuh-uh, no more cringin’ away like a whipped dog. Y’see this?” He released one of her arms, leaning to spread apart the gruesome wound in his neck. But even as she watched, she saw movement beneath the severed skin…the black ichor was bubbling, little strands of mold were twisting and moving inside him. Just like when she’d seem him heal all the other times, even when she tried not to watch; when she’d cringed away from what he was…and what she, apparently, was.  
  
“Lucas, please…”  
  
“Wooo baby, gives ya a rush. Don’t worry, Viv, I ain’t gonna kill ya. Hell, it’s too late for me to kill ya, just like I been sayin’. Only way for you to die is back at the lab. So, ya know…in a way, you’re safe. In a way. So really, what are you worried about, huh? Don’t be such a priss. The docs already spoke t’me about it, and we all agreed it’s time for you to er…rise to the occasion, so t’speak. And I said I’d help.”  
  
Even as she watched, he leaned down towards her, his wild blue gaze boring into hers. For a moment, he seemed to be gazing at her face, and specifically her lips, for far longer than she felt was comfortable. He might have kissed her, could have kissed her…probably was going to kiss her. But his gaze flickered down and his smile widened, and he leaned down past her, pressing his bony chest to hers as he brought his puckered lips down to her shoulder, and kissed the stab wound he’d made instead.  
  
Was that supposed to be tender? Like kissing a boo-boo to make it better? She could dimly feel him kissing at the torn skin, beneath the ripped-open yellow shirt. When he leaned back up, his lips and chin were stained red and black, and they parted so he could grin all the harder down at her. Her skin lit up beneath him, flushing red from adrenaline and pain and embarrassment and something darker that she was still refusing to acknowledge.  
  
“See, girly girl? Just like I said. I’m gonna help you out. Gonna teach you all about it. You can fight it if ya want, make it a lil’ more exciting for me, maybe show you got some fuckin’ sense of fight in there somewhere. Might take some time, but you’re gonna learn. The hard way, if we gotta. Oh, this is gonna be fun, glad I cleared up my schedule. So you and me? Baby, we got alllll the time in the world…” He licked his lips, blue eyes still alight as they stared unblinking down at her bleeding body. “So let’s get started.”


	8. Chapter 8

This time, he had woken her out of a dead sleep on the sofa, with a sharpened screwdriver being jammed into her leg. Her bloodshot eyes snapped open, and her hands curled into claws where she had been clutching the stuffed gator to her chest, mouth stretching open in a scream that broke her throat and drowned out the shriek of crickets outside. Thrashing in a potent mixture of adrenaline and leftover sleep, she flailed her way right off the sofa and landed with a thud onto the floor.

Lucas stood over her with a bored expression, holding the dripping tool. “Hey.”

She stared up at him, a little cross-eyed, hair sticking out in all directions and drawing her wounded leg up protectively. “What the hell! What the hell, Lucas!”

“I’m back.”

“I was asleep!”

“Heh. Guess y’aint asleep anymore. Welp, while you’re down there, might as well try again. Remember what I said, you just gotta brute force it, make it obey,” he responded blithely, slumping down to sit where she had been laying and clicking on the television, as if stabbing her was simply a way of getting her to make room on the couch. “Long day in the workshop, I’ll tell you what. Still can’t get the spikes to go all the way through the…What are you lookin’ at me for, you waiting on something? C’mon, do it!”

“I told you, it’s still not working,” she said, reproach in her tone as she looked mournfully over the puncture wound that was still fountaining red and black onto the floor. “Plus, you’re a horrible teacher, and you just keep using it as an excuse to stab me!”

“Don’t be such a cranky bitch. And for fuck’s sake, try harder. It ain’t the time for a light touch.”

The pain in her wounded thigh did make healing sound pretty good about now. She tried to focus, expression screwing up as she squinted her eyes and tightened her jaw, fists clenching as she tried to make the infection respond to her will. That sick and poisonous thing inside her, she just needed to figure out how to get it to respond. Lucas kept saying to ‘force’ it, but couldn’t elaborate how. She just needed to order it to obey her, to make it do what she wanted…Please?

Focusing as hard as she could, she tried to gather the mold around the hole in her flesh. “MNnmmnngnh!”

Lucas snickered from up on the now-overtaken couch. “What the hell are you doing? It sounds like you’re constipated down there?”

“It’s not…It’s still not listening to me!”

He sighed, rubbing his face wearily. “Gawdamn, Vivee. You’re making me side with the doctors on this one, and d’you know how much I hate doing that? Seriously, the fuck is wrong with you that you can’t figure this out? It’s been over three weeks. Even the lab rats are having better progress than you are. Maybe I should make one of them my secretary, since you’re so shit at this.”

“Maybe you should,” she grumbled. “Maybe you should make it do all the work while I go back to sleep?”

“Yeah, c’mere. Lay your head right down. Mind the lump, it’s a big’un.” He sneered a grin and lewdly patted his lap.

She threw the stuffed gator at him in reply, turning away from his hooting and slumping down onto the dirty floor to glare daggers at the hole in her thigh. Stupid Lucas. Stupid leg. Stupid mold. She clenched her jaw and tried to make it respond, to make the little spores and fibers inside her react to her bidding. She’d gotten to the point where she could feel them, at least. Sort of. She was aware of it inside her now, could feel it somehow. But no matter how she tried, she couldn’t make it do anything on her command.

It wasn’t for lack of opportunities. Lucas’s sadistic side had reared its head with this new ‘assignment’ and took immense glee at causing new wounds to help her ‘practice’. She’d been actively trying to avoid him, but in such a small space it was inevitable that he’d find her and push some knife or screwdriver or even a dirty fork into some part of her. It was a new game for him, and though it had horrified her at first, she was quickly becoming more annoyed than anything.

What would once have been grievous wounds were now little more than irritations, stinging and irking more than hurting. The wounds did heal, eventually. But not with her help. She’d been reduced to hiding from him where she could, sulking and wiping blood and goop off her poor clothes from where Lucas has stabbed her yet again. Asshole.

“C’mon, girly girl,” Lucas chided, fumbling open one of his snack cakes and getting crumbs all over her couch. “Show me your war face. You just gotta get real pissed off, and make it do what you say.”

“But I am angry!” she protested, expression turning even more sour.

“That’s angry? Honestly, I thought you woulda got angry by now, but you’re just…You’re such a pussy, Viv.” He took a huge bite of fake chocolate and chemical cream filling, smeared on the corner of his pale lips. “All cringey and quiet like a whupped mongrel. Still surprised Evie ever gave enough of a shit about you to make you m’girlfriend. Now your friend with the big tits, she had some fight in her. Heh, shoulda heard the things she was calling me. Before she died, of course.”

His gaze went fond and far away, and Vivian felt something nasty and poisonous roil in her gut. But she swallowed it down and kept her voice low and even, jerking her head back to look at the hole in her leg and went to try and focus again. “Don’t talk about Hannah like that.”

Lucas grumbled, rolling his eyes down at her. “See! I’m talking shit about your dead blond big-tittied friend and you just get surly, not mad.”

“Getting mad never helps anything.”

“Yeah. You’re doin’ real good on your own ain’tcha, mastering that mold inside you by…what, outsmarting it? How’s that going?”

“I’m not _supposed_ to have mold inside me…I’m not _supposed_ to be here…”

He brightened. “See! There y’go, there’s a start! Now just really pissed off and next thing you know, that stuff in your veins is gonna be surging and won’t have any choice but t’do what you say. Just telling it what to do won’t work, you gotta _force_ it to. Trust me. I’m better at this mold shit than Eveline herself…Uh, don’t tell her I said that.”

She poked a finger into the hole in her leg, looking at the black goop inside. “Dr. Crane isn’t going to like this. I haven’t been able to take notes because nothing’s worked…What is The Company going to do to me if I can’t?”

He paused mid-bite, narrowing his eyes a little. “They won’t do shit to you, not unless I give them the okay. They know what I’ll do to ‘em if they get outta line. Because I got access to what they don’t, and that means I got ‘em by the balls…Now that don’t mean I’m gonna give you any slack! I might get bored with you failin’ at this and dose you up with killer serum before throwing you to the gators. Get me one of them sexy stiletto heels secretaries like in the videos instead.”

“I’m going to make you a big un-sexy list of why heels in a lab are a really bad idea.”

“Why you gotta be such a boner killer, Viv? Heh, one of these days you-”

They both felt it at the same time. Her skin prickled all at once, hair rising and goosebumps spreading from her neck outward, as though someone had lowered the temperature inside her ribcage. Lucas stopped talking, gaze going cold and stern. Like a ripple, spreading through some nerve system neither of them could see, they felt it headed towards them, a portent of something unfortunate sure to come.

She reached out for him, but he was already pulling her up off the ground, dragging her up onto the sofa with him and cramming her in against his ribcage. Ugh. He really needed to shower, but that was the least of her worries. She pulled and tucked her legs up, pressing herself to his side while he sprawled out as casually as possible, as though they had been watching television and cuddling together this whole time.

The foul sensation was upon them, coalescing from the blackness of the mold inside her mind. The little girl that Eveline made them see her as, that she saw herself as, was suddenly standing in front of them, smiling eerily.

Lucas cleared his throat casually, scolding in that faux good-natured way. “Evie! What’d I say about comin’ in my room unannounced when I’m with mah girlfriend!”

Eveline gave him a childish scowl in return, folding her arms petulantly. Her piercing blue gaze, even brighter than the Baker family’s own eyes, drifted slowly from him, to the woman that was clinging to him nearby. “What? Were you kissing?”

“Well we mighta been! But this time, just watching a movie and uh, ya know, cuddling. Vivee here’s big on cuddling, right Vivee?” He jostled her for an answer, fingers digging into the meat of her arm.

“H-Hi Eveline,” Vivian squeaked on cue, still as cowed as ever in her presence and making her words stumbled and awkward. “Yes. I mean, yeah. I love it. I mean, to cuddle. Cuddling Lucas. All the time.”

The dark-haired little girl rolled her eyes. “That’s boring. I have a better idea.”

That didn’t bode well. There was no way in hell that could have boded well. Vivee couldn’t stop a little panicked glance towards Lucas, but he paid her no mind, crushing her back against him. One gaunt hand reached up and pressed the back of her head forward until her face was pushed into his neck and shoulder. It may have looked like a rough gesture of affection, but it kept her expressions hidden.

“Yeah?” he said casually, feeling her breathe out against his throat and trying to ignore it. “What kinda idea you got, Eveline?”

“I want to have a birthday party,” she said, and grinned with same maniacal cold smile that always meant unpleasant things would soon follow. “I’m going to have a birthday party and you all have to get me something. Momma is going to make a special cake, with candles and everything. You can bring Vivian. She’s funny.”

“Sounds like a hoot and a half. Whaddaya want for your big birthday party?”

Her smile widened. “I can’t tell you. If I told you, you’ll just get it and then that won’t be a surprise. Birthday presents are surprises.”

“Fuck, you never make things easy. Fine, fine, I’ll figure somethin’ out. When are you having this shindig?”

“Two days. On a Saturday. You have birthday parties on the weekend, so everyone can come.”

Vivian didn’t dare move, staying quite still and barely able to breathe against Lucas’s neck. She wasn’t eager to join any sort of party involving that monstrous thing pretending to be a girl. Eveline didn’t even seem to truly understand what a birthday party meant. It sounded like she had watched television shows or read what birthday parties were like, and was merely trying to imitate what she had heard. This thing trying to be a little girl, wanted to celebrate with the idea of a party that little girls were supposed to like.

Lucas grunted, rubbing his clammy forehead with one hand. “Arright, arright. We’ll be there. With a present.”

“You’re the best big brother ever, Lucas,” Eveline said, her smile easing and no longer showing her teeth.

“Yeah. Now git on back t’the house, I’m sure you and momma have lots of planning to do.”

The vision of the girl faded away, and gradually the prickling hair all over Vivian’s neck lay flat once more. After another moment, she peeled her face out of his hoodie and looked to where the apparition had been standing, before giving Lucas a very concerned look. He merely looked as cranky and put-out as usual, sighing and slumping back into the couch.

“What a pain in the ass,” he groaned. “Now I gotta go wrangle someone up for her to play with for a while. I’ll head out tomorrow and see who I can find. And you, Viv? Well, guess you better get practicing over the next two days. Eveline’s parties always go t’shit in the end.”

He offered out the bloodstained screwdriver and she took it, staring at it unhappily. He was right. The last party had ended in bloodshed, and this one sounded like it might be worse. She needed to try and master the filth inside her before it went to hell. Maybe with some luck, she could learn to order the mold to heal the wounds that were sure to come.

She bit her lip, wincing as she made herself look away. Steeling her resolve once more, she brought the screwdriver down into her own leg.

* * *

 

  
“I can’t eat that stuff, Lucas. I can’t. I won’t.”

“Can’t help ya there. If momma catches you sneaking it away, you’re fucked and there’s no stopping her. She’s got a real bug up her ass about home cookin’ since Evie arrived. I mean literally, hehe.”

“Ew. Ew, on so many levels.”

They stood before the doorway to the main house, and Lucas pressed on the three-headed dog motif to activate the locking mechanism as the doors creaked open. The smell of mold and rotting wood and tainted meat swept over them like a foul breeze, making her squint and step back behind him a little.

“Is it too late to say I left the stove on and run away?” she said, sounding doubtful.

“Nice try. She said for me to bring you, so I’m bringing you. Just don’t expect any help from me when it all goes tits up. Every man for himself. Sorry, babe.” He delivered a pop to her ass for emphasis, jarring her across the threshold and inside.

“Worst boyfriend ever.” She shot him a nervous glare as he pulled the heavy doors closed behind them, locking with an ominous grinding noise.

“Tough titties, shoulda eaten that chocolate when you had the chance, just like I said,” he replied without sympathy. “Now, I kinda like it when you get all mouthy at me and all, but best get that shit out of your system now. Put on your happy face and just act all ladylike, momma loves that. Come on, cuddle up, Evie likes knowing her little housemates are playing their role.” He held out one arm expectantly.

Frowning, she moved into her place and let him sling his arm around her. As usual, he seemed more irritated than afraid. But he had been dealing with Eveline for a lot longer than she had, and frankly he had his fair share of screws loose in the first place. Maybe if she just kept her head down like he said, Eveline would continue to overlook her as nothing more than her chosen brother’s ‘girlfriend’, as usual. The notion was a little insulting, but garnering any more attention than that would have been far worse. And it was already pretty bad. Swallowing down the lump in her throat, she kept pace with him as he skulked into the dining room.

The place had been decorated with streamers and garlands and balloons. It all looked very cheerful, and did not match the general vibe of the room at all. The patriarch of the family, Jack, was sitting at his place at the table already. He was wearing a bright yellow polka-dot party hat and a pair of goofy glasses with a clown nose, but his eyes still burned with a vacant aggression as he sat there sipping his beer. One of the Molded, which she guessed was Hannah again by its familiar tiara, was sitting on a chair nearby, a party blower held between two its jagged teeth. Marguerite was nowhere to be seen, probably in the kitchens.

“Oh…God damnit…” Lucas breathed out above her.

There were two other people at the table. One of them was Zoe, sitting straight-backed in a chair with her blue gaze staring unblinkingly forward in a thousand yard stare. For a moment, she was so completely still that Vivian feared she might have been a corpse. But after a few moments she groaned and moved a little, though it looked like she was having trouble. Blinking one eye and then the other, she seemed barely aware at all, either drugged or subdued or worse.

The other was a woman that Vivian didn’t recognize at all. She was a pretty thing, with a rounder face and long dark hair that fell in ragged waves around her shoulders. Judging by the ropes that were tying both wrists to the arms of her chair, she must have been some sort of prisoner. Her head lolled strangely and she was muttering feverishly to herself, taking no notice of anything around her.

Eveline, the ‘real’ Eveline, was sitting slumped in her wheelchair by the table, a triangular party hat strung about her chin. The old woman opened her eyes as they drew near, and Vivian saw how her pupils narrowed as they focused in on them.

“Hey, Lucas,” she said. “Vivian. Good. Everyone’s here now.”

“What’re they doin’ here, Evie?” Lucas grumbled, nodding to the two delirious-looking women by the table. “Mia’s gonna freak out again if she wakes up, always does. And Zoe’s gonna be bitchin’ up a storm. We should get rid of ‘em.”

“It’s my birthday party. Everyone has to come,” Evie replied in her creaking tones. “Even if my sister’s mean and my mommy is bad sometimes. I still love them.”

Vivian didn’t like how she said the word ‘love’.

“Hi Vivian,” Evie said, and the child’s voice echoed in her head over the old woman’s voice in reality.

She shuddered and tried to keep herself from pushing Lucas in front of her. Instead she made herself stay still, eyes lowered and voice polite. “Hi. Happy birthday, Eveline.”

The sides of the old woman’s wrinkled lips tilted upward. “Is Lucas being nice to you? He’s mean to everyone else.”

Lucas’s fingers dug into her shoulder, and she coughed up her next words. “N-no. He’s nice to me. I mean, nice enough. H-he got you a great birthday present from both of us! Happy birthday. Again.”

“…That’s good. Sit down.”

Eveline’s attention wandered and Vivian exhaled everything she’d been keeping in her lungs for the last five minutes. Lucas muttered something that sounded vaguely approving into her ear, reaching onto the table and shoving a soda can into her hand. It wasn’t cold, but it would at least help her wet her dry throat as she took a seat a little further away from the main table, next to Lucas’s spot.

Eveline’s head lolled to the side slowly, eyes drifting across the gathered crowd of miscreants. Smiling to herself, she lifted her creaking voice to announce, “Momma is making the cake right now, so we have some time. I want to play some games.”

There was no answer. Lucas sneered and muttered something into his beer, Vivian stared at the floor, Hannah oozed sludge onto the ground, and the two women were still out of their minds. Finally, Jack stirred and turned his clown-glasses towards her. “Woooie, well my family’s always been up for games. What didja have in mind, sugar?”

“No more dumb kid games. I’m too old for those now,” Evie said resolutely. “Something different. Let’s play Truth or Dare.”

Vivian did not like that. Not at all. She couldn’t help it as her gaze darted to the door. But Hannah was already gurgling and shuffling towards it, blocking the only escape route.

“Right. Truth or Dare. Sounds great,” Lucas replied snidely. “S’gonna go real well with this family.”

“Lucas…” Jack rumbled dangerously, and his son smothered any more reluctance with his beer.

“Don’t be mean, Lucas. You can go first.” Eveline managed a weak upnod towards him. “Yes. You’re going first. Truth or dare?”

Lucas scowled bad-temperedly, kicking his feet like a child before groaning aloud, “Gawdamnit…Fine. Truth.”

Eveline looked extremely smug. “Do you fart in your sleep?”

He blinked, then started to open his mouth to release a torrent of abuse before Vivian muttered next to him. “Say yes.”

“Wh-”

She hissed into her soda. “I’ll explain later. Just say yes.”

“Fucking…Why the fuck did you…” He grit his teeth before turning on the table again. “Fine! Yeah! I guess fucking Vivian told you already or something, but yeah. I fart in my fucking sleep. There, that’s my Truth. Fuck.” He slumped down into his chair as Eveline burst into giggles once more.

“You choose next,” Eveline demanded.

“Jesus. Okay, uh…Vivian.”

Vivian paused mid-sup, sending Lucas a glare that was both fearful and extremely put out. She shouldn’t have been surprised. Of course he would throw her under the bus, especially after the lie about the farting thing, which she had no time to explain to him.

“Truth or Dare?” His bulging blue eyes stared down into hers, pale lips twisted into a half-grin.

“Truth.”

“Pussy.”

“You did Truth too!”

“Ugh…Okay, uh…How many boyfriends did you have before me…and did you bang them?”

Vivian’s eyes widened a bit, and she turned to Eveline, the game’s hostess. “That’s two questions, that’s not fair!”

Eveline merely giggled at her discomfort. “It’s a game. You have to answer.”

Folding her arms and steeling herself against her chair, Vivian seethed and tried to make herself look small. “Fine. _Lucas_. I’ve had three boyfriends in my life. And one of them, the last one, we…did. A little bit.”

“…Was it any good?” Lucas leaned over her.

Eveline quickly grew bored of that subject, luckily. “No, Lucas! Now it’s Vivian’s turn.”

With relief evident in her posture, Vivee looked to the rest of her options. She had no desire to engage Jack Baker, and nothing good would come from fighting with Lucas right now. She decided to target one of the other women and take her chances. Maybe by making them ‘play’, they would be released from whatever spell they seemed to be under. It was worth a shot.

“Um…I want to ask…Zoe.”

On cue, Zoe shuddered strangely, slumping forward in her chair and starting to come to. Her eyelids fluttered, then opened to the same brilliant blue as the rest of her family. With a gasp, she jolted backward, the chair going out from under her and causing her to stagger and nearly fall. Twisting away, she turned to make a run for it, only to find Hannah’s massive black-oozing form blocking the door.

Eveline giggled from her wheelchair, and it was high-pitched like a little girl’s. “Zooooe. You can’t leave yet. It’s my birthday party, after all. We’re playing games and it’s your turn.”

Zoe’s eyes darted, backing away from the Molded as she desperately sought another avenue of escape. Lucas snickered nearby. Raising both hands, she backed away to press against the peeling wall. “Evie. You can’t do this…You can’t keep doing this.”

“It’s your turn, Zoe. Truth or Dare?”

“Momma…where’s momma? What’d you do with-”

The other woman bound in the chair, Mia, suddenly jerked in her chair, flinging herself upright in a tangle of hair and a strange grimace. “I’m not your MOMMY! I’m not your- your mmm-”

Vivian kept quiet, not at all sure what was happening here. At least Zoe seemed aware of herself again, though she remained pressed to the wall and was nearly hyperventilating. But Mia was a bit of a wildcard, and she began to get the feeling that this other woman wasn’t just another ordinary and ill-fortuned Baker victim.

She turned to her only real companion here, Lucas, whispering up to him. “Who is she?”

“Tell ya later…Now c’mon, Zoe! That ain’t in the spirit of the game! It’s Truth or Dare, girl! Vivian asked you.” He sneered one of his grins, clearly enjoying the show. “Evie, she’s gotta answer, don’t she?”

Vivee tried to meet Zoe’s eyes with an apologetic look, but Zoe was transfixed on Eveline. “Evie, please. Just let me out of here. I’m not your sister. Nobody here is your-”

That was clearly not what Eveline wanted to hear. The child side of her voice became stronger, harsher, somehow painful to listen to. “They’re mine. Everyone here is mine now. We’re a family and I love you, even if you’re a bad sister! But I invited you to my party anyway. Now it’s your turn, Zoe. Play. The. Game.”

Zoe cringed backward as if struck, and Vivian felt a sudden pang by her forehead. She had the distinct feeling that the chemicals that Lucas’s company had added to her brain were shielding her somehow, from…whatever that was. An order via the Mold, perhaps. Zoe was not so lucky. The other girl remained with her back to the wall, but lowered her head and rasped a low, “T-truth or Dare?…I guess…I guess Dare?”

“Heh. This’ll be good,” Lucas muttered over Viv’s shoulder.

Eveline was quiet, apparently thinking, then smiled again. “I know! Since you’re being such a party pooper and want to leave early, I don’t want you around anyway. Papa, take Zoe up to the top floor. If she can get out before you catch her, she can leave. I dare you to try and escape, big sister. Oh! Papa, you can use the chainsaw.”

“W-wait! Wait, Evie! Daddy, no! No, you-” Zoe’s words were fraught with disbelief and fear, even as the patriarch in his clown glasses slowly stood from the table.

He was upon her within two strides, grabbing onto her with one massive arm. She flailed, yanking back and thrashing like a landed fish as she tried to get away, but he was already dragging her across the stained floors, past the Molded and towards the staircase.

“Woooo-ie, listen to her holler! C’mon Zoe, if you ain’t gonna play games with the rest of us, then you and I are gonna have us a game all our own. If you don’t move those legs, I’m gonna have Marguerite put ‘em in with tomorrow’s dinner. Whoohoo!”

Vivian stayed extremely still in her chair as the shrieking woman was bodily dragged off into the rest of the house. For a few long minutes, there was nothing but the sound of Eveline’s breathing, Mia’s muttering, and Lucas very smugly snickering into his beer. Eventually there was a shrill scream, muffled somewhere high above them, and the sound of a chainsaw engine revving. Vivian winced, putting a hand over her face and felt guilty that she had ever tried to help Zoe by waking her up at all. That had completely backfired.

Lucas outright giggled.

Twisting in her chair, Vivee looked to Lucas with disdain written on her face. “That’s your own sister!”

He snorted. “So? She’s always been a bitch, maybe it’s high time that dad and Evie taught her another lesson. Always thought she was so much fuckin’ better than us. Than me. Fuck her.”

“You’re terrible! She’s still herself! She might get really-”

Mia thrashed in her chair again out of nowhere, her face warping into something dark and vicious. “FUCK YOU! FUUUCK YOOUU! LET ME GO! LET ME OUT! I’VE GOT TO…”

Eveline seemed to take no notice of the chaos around her, still smiling happily. “I guess since Zoe and papa left, I’ll choose the next person. And I thiiiink…” She trailed off a little, eyes darting to each contender. Vivian pointedly looked away.

“Vivian. Truth or Dare?”

_Damn._

“Um…Truth,” she said. Best to stick to Truth, no matter how derisively Lucas snorted.

Eveline was really staring at her now, and Vivee did not like it. The old woman lifted her head from her pillow, managing to sit almost straight despite the strain on her weak body. “Do you want a baby when you and Lucas get married?”

Lucas spat out his drink in a wild spray, coughing violently. Next to him, now covered in beer and spit, Vivian turned as white as a sheet, her expression blanking. For a moment the question simply didn’t even register, and she stared ahead like a deer in the headlights. What? WHAT?

“Do you want a baby?” Eveline repeated helpfully. “We can get one. We haven’t had a baby yet. Momma and Papa are too old. But you and Lucas and a baby…Wouldn’t it be fun? Then, you can be a new family for a while.”

She shot Lucas a look of utter panic, and for once he didn’t seem to have an answer. His Adam’s Apple bobbled stupidly in his neck, mouth opening and closing and his chin covered in beer. With no help from him, she tried to shake herself back to a verbal state, coughing and clearing her throat. “Uuuhm. Uh-er…Eveline, that’s…Wow. Ahem. Lucas and I are…” She rubbed her forehead and looked to Lucas again. Still nothing. “It’s just been too early to think about babies. W-we haven’t even talked about it yet! It’s such a big step. We haven’t even talked about getting married, either. Just trying to…to…take it…slow?”

Eveline frowned at her answer, then looked a little thoughtful. “Oh, right. I didn’t make you get married yet…”

“Lucas!” Vivee nearly shouted, almost right next to his ear and making him physically jump. “Lucas! Truth or Dare!” She tried to continue the game. The game might be the thing to distract Evie from going down such a repulsive line of thought. This twisted, perverted game of house she was playing was one thing, but adding marriages and actually kidnapping babies would be beyond the fucking pale.

“Right! Right, Truth or Dare! Uh…Yeah, uh, Dare. Fuck, just Dare me, make me do somethin’ crazy here.” Even Lucas looked unnerved, twitching and setting down his beer bottle a little too hard.

“Okay, Dare. I dare you to…Um, let me think. I dare you tooo…” Her mind raced. What would entertain Eveline without being too mean? Could Eveline even be entertained it without it being something horrible inflicted on somebody else? She tried to think. “I dare you to…um, you have to do the rest of the game in your underwear?”

That would have been embarrassing for any Truth or Dare contestant, at least at the types of parties she was used to. Lucas had tensed up while waiting for her request, but he merely half lidded his eyes and uttered a groaning sigh. “Really? That’s what you got, Vivee? Goddamn, I can’t trust you with anything.”

Vivee shrugged helplessly. What was he expecting, her to request him to be the next one cut in half with a chainsaw? He grumbled to himself, but he complied. Shrugging off his hoodie and t-shirt, he awkwardly shuffled his shoes off…but paused and had to take a breath as he unbuttoned his dirty khakis, letting them drop. He stood there in a pair of skimpy white briefs, as skinny as a skeleton and as pale as one too. And though he had complained about the benign nature of her dare, she felt a little bad for him as he did so. With the way he hunched over and wrapped his thin arms around himself, no matter his verbal bravado, it clearly made him uncomfortable.

He growled and looked away when Eveline laughed at him. Vivian watched him, saw the tips of his ears redden and his cheeks flush from white to pale, pale pink. He didn’t hold his head so high, instead glaring at the floor even more than usual. So he still had some shame left. Not so tough when it was him as the target for embarrassment, was it?

Something dark in her delighted at his suffering, even as another part of her reacted with guilt and pity.

Across the table, Mia spasmed violently, twisting at her ropes and gritting her teeth so hard that they scraped audibly. “GET OUT!”

“Lucas, your turn,” Evie said. “You should get Vivian back. For making you stand around in your dumb underwear. Make Vivian do a Dare. Vivian, you have to do a Dare too.”

“But…the rules…”

“This is my party. I make the rules,” Eveline sneered in reply. “Truth is boring. Lucas, make Vivian do a Dare!”

That seemed to be just fine to Lucas, whose lips turned up on one side as he looked his wary ‘girlfriend’ up and down. “You heard the birthday girl, Viv. Hmmm…now, maybe I ain’t really the best fella for when it comes to makin’ up creative punishments for folks or anything…but let me thiiiink…”

She gave him a pleading look. Even though she knew it wouldn’t work. Asshole.

“Vivee. I dare you to…Aw, ya know what, look at that face. I cain’t stay mad at you!” His posture spoke otherwise, brows lowered and his fingernails leaving red trails in the sickly white flesh of his own ribs. “Here, I’m gonna help you make a friend. Why don’t you untie Mia there and give her a nice, big ol’ hug. I’m talking smushin’ your titties together. A real hug.”

Vivian turned to look at the growling, snarling, hunched-over woman they called Mia, busily clawing at the wood with her broken nails and trying to get loose. “I…Er…”

“You have to do it. Them’s the rules. Truth or Dare.”

Eveline was watching her, smiling unpleasantly. A heaviness hung in the air, and the stink of mold grew worse. She could feel it inside her, driving her to obey, even with the cure protecting her. She couldn’t let Eveline know that her hold had been broken. Lord knows what she would do to her then…Not to mention what Lucas would do to her. She wasn’t left with much choice. Obey or pretend to obey, she had to untie the wild woman.

With reluctance in every movement, she rose from her chair and slid towards the still-swaying Mia. Prodding her a little with one finger, Vivian received no response. Maybe she could give her a quick hug while she still seemed to be dazed? She decided to take the chance, fingers fumbling to undo the ropes around the arms of the chair to release her. The other woman still remained slumped and unresponsive. So with a wary breath, Vivee leaned down and went to wrap a quick embrace around her, hugging her tightly but briefly, chest to chest.

She was pretty sure she heard Lucas make a little noise behind her. Fitting for the pervert he was. Ugh.

Vivian held the embrace for only a moment, just to complete her task. After this, perhaps they could move on. Maybe Marguerite would bring out some monstrosity of a cake, they would sing the happy birthday dirge, Lucas could hand over whatever poor sap he’d been able to catch, and they could walk away without gruesome injury. Honestly, for one of Eveline’s infamous parties, things had been going almost smoothly.

Really, it was all going pretty well, up until the point Mia bit her.


	9. Chapter 9

As she was drawing upright to hurry back to her chair, Mia suddenly surged to life. Vivian could swear she saw a brief glance of the woman’s jaws unhinging. Then the next moment there was a surge of pain in her shoulder and she was howling and trying to shake free. Even as she thrashed to get loose, she could feel blunt teeth scraping and tearing, severing meat and tissue until a chunk had been torn from her. Above it all, she could hear Eveline laughing inside her head.

She flailed, nails scratching and catching Mia across the face. A few desperate kicks finally landed a blow to the stomach, and she managed to shove her way out of the melee, staggering back and clutching her shoulder. Mia fell back with a crash, blood flooding down her chin.

For half a moment she hoped that was enough to satisfy Eveline’s lust for blood and conflict.

Mia suddenly lifted upward, spine creaking like a serpent’s, in a way that people were not supposed to move. Her face was gray and black, eyes shot through with black veins. Before Vivian could flee, she was upon her once more. Grabbing hold onto her arm, she wrenched and squeezed. Vivian pulled back as hard as she could, screaming, trying to get loose.

There was a rather unnerving squeaking noise, then a crack, as the bones in her arm broke in two. Laughing wildly, Mia began twisting, until the shattered pieces were pulled apart and her flesh started to come loose with it. And still Vivee was only fighting to get away, crying and flailing.

At least with all the blood and liquid black oozing from her wounds, Mia lost her grip. Slick with red and black, Vivee shot free, one arm twisted and mangled, hanging by threads just below her elbow. Clutching it to her chest, she felt her back hit the wall, spattering the wallpaper as she whimpered and slumped down against it.

Lucas was laughing wildly where he stood in his underwear overcome with glee at her misfortune. Although he smothered his giggles when she uttered a high, keening whine and threw herself at him. Clutching both arms around him, burying her face into his ribs and smearing him with gore, she latched onto him like a leech. He snickered and went to drape an arm around her. “Heh! That’s what ya get! Arright, arright. Hey-”

“Mommy likes you,” Eveline said happily, smiling.

Mia was upon her once more, grabbing onto her hair and pulling hard enough to sever her scalp if she didn’t let go. Vivian was ripped away, leaving long scratch marks in Lucas’s bare ribs. Mia had gotten hold of the knife for the cake, and was repeatedly driving it into the cowering woman beneath her, shredding what was left of her arms and sending bits of flesh and fingers flying.

“Fuck you!” The woman kept shrieking at nobody in particular, not even her squirming victim. "Shoulda killed me! Why won't you kill me!"

Vivian was left in a rapidly bleeding-out mess on the floor, going fetal and curling in on herself, vainly trying to protect her core. Even her screaming was drowned out by Mia’s shouting and threats

Lucas wrinkled his nose, turning on the old woman with a petulant frown. “Aw, c’mon, Evie. I’m supposed to be in charge of ‘er, ya can’t bust her up like that. She’s all fragile-like, ya don’t know her limits like I do. Let me have her.”

Eveline only chuckled happily. “She’s funny. You should bring her over to play with Mommy more, so they can be best friends.”

Mia stood, covered in spatters of blood, clutching her knife and Vivian’s severed arm, screaming incoherently. And though in her semi-feral state she probably didn’t even realize it, she added insult to injury when she started beating Vivian with her own mangled limb. Eveline wheezed a gentle little laugh at the sight.

Vivian was, as usual, reduced to useless tears, voice a snotty, bloody gurgle. “L-Lucas! Please!”

Lucas grumbled again, stepping towards them. “Fucking useless. Fuck’s sake. Mia, stop bein’ a bitch, leave h-”

“Lucas.” Eveline’s voice was low and cold once more. “That’s just part of the game. No breaking the rules.”

He snorted in disagreement, as a frequent breaker of his own rules. But he stepped back into his spot, still hugging his own scrawny torso and watching as Mia continued brutalizing his companion where she lay in a puddle on the ground. Vivian was on her own yet again.

And without Lucas coming to stop it, what would happen to her? Mia would kill her, wouldn’t she? Mia would stab and mangle and cut her until she was nothing but a pile of meat. But then, could Mia kill her if Vivian couldn’t die? Would she just lay there in pieces on the ground, aware of her state but unable to heal or do anything about it? Would she be reformed as one of those…things?

Why had she expected Lucas to stop it anyway? Why would she have thought that he would help her? Lucas didn’t care about her. Lucas didn’t care about anything. He had no room for anything other than his stupid power plays and his stupid games; just a stupid, immature idiot in a swamp who played at having a kingdom. Of course he wouldn’t help her. Of course he didn’t care about her.

And the scientists wouldn’t help her because they also didn’t care. Hannah didn’t care, because she was no longer capable of caring and wasn’t even Hannah anymore. She was just another toy, along with the Bakers, and everything else here. Including Vivian. Just another toy for Eveline. Another toy to be broken and mangled and unappreciated and ignored and disrespected constantly by every FUCKING PERSON OR THING OR WHATEVER ANYTHING WAS HERE IN THIS FUCKING MADHOUSE LIVING HELL FUCK FUCK FUCK—

“Get off me!” Vivian screamed, or tried to. It came out more as a gurgling and bubbling noise through all the blood and mucus caught in her throat.

Mia stabbed her in the ribs again for her efforts. It hurt, but no more than all the other stabs. And she wouldn’t fucking stop, even though Vivian had asked so nicely. She’d always asked so nicely.

“GET OFF ME!” Vivian snarled again, and felt the liquid in her throat boil.

Still no response. Mia stabbed her again.

And when Vivian went to yell “ _I SAID GET OFF ME!_ ” again, the liquid was forced out as her words finally erupted through…along with all the bile and hatred that had been blocking them.

Steaming, roiling, foul-smelling black ichor spewed from her open mouth and spattered on-fucking-point all over Mia’s face. It clung to the flesh, wisps of gray vapor rising from where it churned and ate away at skin and muscle and everything underneath it. All the bitterness and rancor and acid that Vivian had been swallowing for so long was finally expelled in physical form. And even though it burned in her throat, it burned her target far, far worse.

“ _FUCK YOU! FUCK YOOUUU!_ ”

Mia clutched at her face, staggering backward. Vivian was still screaming at her, cursing her, and promptly vomited another stream of black liquid all over the madwoman’s back when she tried to turn away. Now it was Mia’s turn to shriek, scraps of shirt and melted flesh sloughing off her ribs. Such was the potency of the venom that the younger girl had been holding back for far, far too long.

Lucas took a step back, eyes wide. “Oh, shi-”

The mangled Vivian managed to stagger upright, black liquid still dripping thickly from her lower jaw. One of her ears and part of her cheek had been hacked off, and part of it flapped open to reveal bared teeth when she set her jaw in a snarl. Covered in bleeding wounds and missing her arm, she wavered a little, swaying where she stood. “Ffff-ffffuuucckk yoouuu…”

Eveline grinned from her wheelchair, and Mia turned on Vivian once more with her knife. Though blinded, her eyes either damaged or gone altogether, the rabid woman that Evie had chosen as her ‘mommy’ still proved to be a vicious opponent. Vivian was hit again, the knife buried to its hilt in between her chest and her collarbone.

But this time, Vivee hit back.

A smaller fist slammed into Mia’s face, sending black liquid flying as there was a sickening noise from nearly-melted bone beneath. But without her other limb, she was still so weak. They’d ripped her arm off so…she needed another arm. She needed a new arm, and then she could hurt them with it. Hurt them like they deserved.

There was a crunching wet sound as Vivian’s mangled arm moved strangely, sinuously, like something was bulging and moving down towards where the limb had been torn off. Coagulated black mold solidified into an ugly tendril, erupting from out of the joint and coiling around the other woman’s throat. Mia didn’t even have time to react as she was lifted off her feet and yanked through the air, hurtled across the room so hard that her body thudded into the far wall and slid down into a broken pile on the floor.

Vivian stood breathing heavily, hunched and staggering, little reaching tendrils of mold oozing from her open wounds, her new makeshift arm slithering and flopping like a giant dying snake at her side. And still she wanted to scream, hurl more teary frustrated insults at this whole stupid family. It only came out as another wave of reeking black sludge, spilling out of her jaws to land hissing and steaming on the floorboards.

…Eveline laughed at her.

The old woman’s bony shoulders shook gently, giggling breathlessly like the warped and decrepit old thing she really was. All of this was just a show to her. Pain and humiliation were nothing but a game to that wretched little—

“FUCK! Viv, no!”

Lucas moved from his spot, launching forward and slamming into her just before she was about to make a move against the little monster. She was taken to ground again with a painful crash, glaring up at him and snarling more words that just bubbled up as more poisonous mold. The veins of her sclera had burst, leaving the whites of her eyes an eerie red, and it was hard to make out where her blown pupils stared into much more brilliant pale blue.

Ignoring the way the ichor burned over his hands, he kept his grip on both shoulders, shaking her and growling low. “Viv! Fuck, Viv. Don’t. Don’t fucking blow our cover! Vivee!”

At least that seemed to get through to her, her brow furrowing as her chin lifted in distress. Her remaining arm and her new serpentine limb abruptly went to wrap around him. She gurgled something that sounded like his name, smearing his chest with that painful stuff she had been vomiting up moments prior. He winced as it ate away the skin, still clad only in his briefs.

He wished he had been wearing more than the briefs actually. They were tented in the front and he wondered if she had noticed.

For once, Lucas didn’t entirely seem certain of himself, especially when she went to embrace him. He found himself sticky with black ooze and blood, the constricting serpentine limb trying to wrap itself around him. “U-uh…”

Her good hand, missing two of her fingers, found the hollow of his cheek, holding his face. Behind all the bile and mold and anger, she whimpered something he couldn’t understand. And her grip only got tighter, smearing filth between them with a rather sickening squelch. Here he was, almost naked on top of her brutalized body, and it hadn’t even been by his own design. Without one of his plans to back him up, he said the first spur of the moment thing he could think of.

“G-goddamn, Vivee! Fuckin’ mood swings, right? PMS must be a bitch!”

She stared up at him, laying very still for a moment. Then her eyes narrowed again, and the tendril of her mold arm suddenly snaked itself around his scrawny throat…and squeezed.

He managed a very strangled laugh. “Ghh-vvvii…Lll’gho!”

She didn’t stop squeezing. Her teeth gritted and her eyes were mere slits of red and black, fingers gripping into the bristled hair on his scalp as the coiled thing around his throat got steadily tighter.

His eyes started to roll back, even as his hips pushed down. Lifting his fingers to the hardened mold, he clawed with his fingernails to try and dig in under his neck, to pry it off him. But his face went red, then white, and then started to go blue and purple…and then there was a sickening crunching noise and a wave of pain as his entire esophagus collapsed inward, and his neck—

Vivian wrenched tight, and separated Lucas’s head from his body. Ripping him in two, his now decapitated skull blinked stupidly as it popped free and went rolling across the filthy floor, mouth open and yelling words with no voice box to help him. His body slumped down limply, twitching and spasming, and Vivee roughly cast it aside into a crumpled heap near the unconscious Mia.

Eveline laughed again, and started clapping.

Forcing herself not to try and murder the girl outright, and having the feeling that it would end in even more disaster, Vivee staggered in the opposite direction. She threw the Molded Hannah aside with barely an effort, leaving a trail of sizzling black as she abandoned the party room and fled into the foyer. There was a crashing of broken glass and splintering wood…and one of the house’s once-barricaded windows was left gaping open as she made her escape.

Back inside, a cheerful humming came from the kitchen. Marguerite bumped the door open with her hip as she carried a birthday cake out on its platter. The white icing was smeared with streaks of red and pink…and more red was oozing out from the bottom. Setting it down on the table, she adjusted the candle on top with a smile and went to join Eveline’s side at her chair. But her foot hit something hard, and she blinked down at where her son’s decapitated head went rolling across the ground like a lopsided ball, shouting silent obscenities up at her.

Frowning severely, she put her hands on her hips. “Lucaaaaas! You get up off that floor right now before your father gets back and tans your hide! Your sister is trying to have her special day and I won’t have you acting the fool. And where’s Vivian? You better be bein’ decent to that poor creature, now. She’s gonna be family.”

Lucas’s head scowled at her and mouthed more curses, while his body shuddered back to a semblance of life and started inching and crawling its way towards its wayward cranium. Bony fingertips finally managed to grasp onto his jaw, dragging it back onto the stump of his neck as there was a rapid bubbling of black mold that started sealing the two back together. The vocal chords would take longer, and so he satisfied himself with sending a middle finger in Marguerite’s direction—

Just in time for Jack to come loping around the bend, a bloody chainsaw still in hand. He came to an abrupt stop, and Lucas’s half-severed head turned very slowly as the Baker patriarch beheld the scene of his misbegotten son making extremely rude gestures towards his wife and adopted daughter.

The old man’s face, still half-obscured by his party hat and goofy clown glasses, split into a grin. “Boy! Every goddamn time I think you done learnt your lesson, here I gotta teach you a new one!”

The chainsaw revved again. And Eveline kept laughing.


	10. Chapter 10

Vivian staggered across the yard, leaving a trail of ichor and bits of broken wood and glass as she went. Her makeshift ‘arm’ tendril dragged loosely in the dirt, and one of her legs wasn’t working correctly, but she could still move. It wasn’t the first time she had been brutalized at one of Eveline’s parties, after all.

Although it seemed strange that… It didn’t hurt? It should have hurt? Or maybe it was hurting and she just couldn’t feel it? With wounds like the ones she had suffered, she should have been in agony and barely functional. But instead she just felt irritated and itchy and strange. And somewhere beneath all that she felt a little… dare she say, satisfied? When she had thrown Mia against the wall, and wrecked that horrible party, and severed Lucas’s stupid head off his stupid body…

It had felt good. It felt good, seeing the face he had made when she hit him. When she had finally struck back at him, for everything he had done to her. Was it revenge, then? She had never really thought of herself as the vengeful type. But that dumb expression he’d worn right as she pulled him apart, it had made her feel something dark and wonderful in the pit of her belly. And she’d almost wanted to laugh…

But then she would have been laughing along with Eveline. She would have been no better than Eveline.

She paused at the side door to the barn, and noticed that there was a chunk of glass stuck in her chest. With a grumble, she pulled it out with a wet slurping noise, and the wound gushed fluid. That was no good; she didn’t want to track goop around or make a mess. So she pressed her hand over the opening and held it together, letting the black mold inside her reform the muscle and skin between her ribs; pulling it to that one spot just like she had pulled the mold out of her severed arm and made a new one.

It itched a bit. But she was too upset to really notice. Yes, she had learned to finally manipulate the infection inside her. But who cared? Nobody else cared. Nobody in this place cared about anything. So why should she?

Reeling in her sinuous new limb, she ascended the stairs until she found herself barred by the security door. Of course. Lucas and his stupid passwords. He was constantly changing them, and the old code she had no longer seemed to work. She was pretty sure that he had rigged up an elaborate puzzle in the rest of the barn that involved some sort of mythical key to Tartarus and a journey into the ‘underworld’ in the barn cellar or some such, but she simply wasn’t in the mood.

A hissing sizzle down by her feet caught her attention, and she saw that the black ichor was still dripping from her mouth, landing in a pool by her shoes and eating away at the rubber soles and the wood beneath. At a loss, she cupped one hand beneath her chin and…belched. It was rude, but necessary. Coughing up another overflowing mouthful of black, she slapped a palm full it onto the locking mechanism with a splatter, watching the device hiss and pop as it away at the metal shell and the electronics beneath. With a buzz, the failsafe activated and it unlocked itself.

Her tendril arm wrapped around the bars with an unpleasant slithering noise as she wrenched it open…and slammed it after her in a very satisfying bang. Plodding up the stairs to the little barn living space, she almost welcomed the musty furniture smell of their shared apartment. As pathetic as it was, it was the only place she could consider ‘home’ now, after living in it for months.

Weakly grasping around the collection of VHS tapes with her good arm, her remaining fingers managed to close around a copy of The Wizard of Oz. Maneuvering it into the VCR, the television blared to life.

“Someplace where there isn't any trouble... Do you suppose there is such a place, Toto?” Dorothy asked.

Vivee couldn’t really imagine such a place. No such thing as over the rainbow. Not in Dulvey.

Leaving the movie to play in the background, she hobbled into the bathroom. It was hard not to wince, seeing herself in the mirror. Her face had been brutally cut apart, and she could see through a hole between her collarbone and her shoulder. Plus all that shredded skin where the mold had exploded out where her severed arm had been? She looked like a monster. It was absolutely sickening. _She_ was sickening.

She grasped the hanging flap of her cheek and delicately held it up to where it should have been. More of that itching and burning sensation, and she could see how the black mold reached its foul strands to connect the two pieces, growing over and repairing and reforming what was missing. Her broken and half-desicated lower jaw was drawn back up into place, setting itself right with a painful clicking sound. Massaging the side of her face, it wasn’t long before the gaping wound was little more than a thinning black line in her skin. Just like how she had seen Lucas re-grow pieces of himself so many times before.

Her arm was a different story, though. There was nothing left to repair, just a half-solidified tentacle of ooze that she had forced out from her ribcage. But she could remember what it was supposed to be like. Maybe if she asked the mold to—

No.

There could be no more asking. No more pleading, or begging, or just _trying_. None of that worked in this place. That much had been made clear. She needed her arm back, and her leg, and all the missing bits. She needed it to happen, and she grit her teeth and bent over the sink, staring at her haggard reflection in the little stained mirror. Sweat was pouring off her, tinged poisonous and black as she reached inside her core, where the infection burned hottest.

She grunted and groaned and made truly awful noises, but her ‘arm’ responded; solidifying into bones and muscle and tendons, from black to gray, to red and white. Little strands of mold began to knit together, threads upon threads that made up her body. And the pain of it was actually worse than when she had been receiving the wounds themselves. At one point she even half-collapsed over the sink, coughing up more sludge as it tried to force its way out of her throat as well as her arm.

The skin itself was the hardest to shape correctly without tearing, and she was still trying to figure out how that all worked when she heard the noises. Stomping and banging from the side stairwell, a beep, and then a familiar voice cursing.

“Gaw’damnit! Do you know how long it took me to— Those door parts ain’t fucking easy t’find, ya know!”

Lucas. Apparently she hadn’t put him down for long.

Vivian scrambled, wiping her face on a dirty towel and limping out of the bathroom. The Wizard of Oz was still playing on the television, with Dorothy looking around in wonder at her newly colored world. Again, Vivee couldn’t relate. Her fate had been the opposite…from the world outside, to being trapped in this hellhole of black and gray mold.

Footsteps came plodding up the wooden stairs, and she briefly wondered if she should arm herself. Not that a knife or even a gun would do her any good against the Bakers. Even Lucas. Though if he did attack her, she could fight back in other ways. She could rip off her other arm, or spit at them, or punish them the way they had punished her— Couldn’t she? Or would that just make Eveline laugh at her again?

She stood tense in the middle of the living room, and Lucas rounded the bend and halted in the doorway. The two stared at one another, though she saw the way those intense blue eyes darted down at her healing arm, then back to the rest of her face. His newly-attached head tilted and his face split into a grin, and he took a step forward.

“Vivee-Girl…”

“Stay back,” she said, taking a step away. “And you…don’t. Just don’t! I’ll hurt you!”

“Will ya?”

“I don’t want to hurt you!”

That was true, wasn’t it? She’d never really wanted to hurt anyone. At least, never before this place. And only because she’d been driven to it in sheer desperation. Desperation combined with that horrible throbbing and itching inside her chest, a bundle of viral mutamycete infection keeping her all together and also ripping her all apart.

Lucas took another step forward. “You’re one moody be-yitch, Vivee. Fightin’ dirty like that. Thought you was a nice girl. Took you home t’meet my family and everything, and this is how ya do me?”

No answer. He eyed her as if expecting her to apologize. Because she had always apologized. But instead she glared and wiped sweat from her forehead and stayed where she was. He watched the way she licked her chapped lips, saliva tinged dark where the mold was still weeping from her. She frowned, and his smile grew.

“Don’t be like that, baby doll. Was just a game. Truth or dare, ya know? Didn’t know you were so competitive enough that you’d get all _mad_ at me and all—”

“You let her!”

“Eh?”

“You let her! Do all those things to me! You were both laughing at me!” Vivian spat, glaring daggers at him while the munchkins performed a happy dance on the screen behind her. “You could have helped me!”

“The hell? Oh I helped you all right. That part where you were about to jump on Eveline and blow our entire gawdamn operation? You’re lucky I’m there for you, bein’ a good boyfriend and all—”

“You’re NOT! MY! BOYFRIEND!” Her scream nearly rattled the floorboards. “You’re not my boyfriend! I never wanted any of this and I never wanted you! You’re a— You’re— You’re just a—” She sputtered, fists clenching so hard that her newly formed arm was starting to make audible squishing noises. After a few moments, she finally decided on her insult. “You’re a horrible person! You’re the most horrible person I’ve ever met!”

Despite the lameness of her words, Lucas actually looked affronted, his bristled face twisting into a scowl. “What the hell! Now that ain’t called for at all, Vivian! After all I done for you; offering you a way out from the very start, lettin’ you stay with me, sticking my neck out to get you the company cure…Hell, I was gonna take you out for ice cream ‘cos you did so good at the party, but now—!”

“Well your ice cream SUCKS!” Vivian shrieked at him, before she could stop herself.

Lucas gave her a startled look, and Vivian blinked at him before she uttered a stifled choking snort that was almost a laugh, and he coughed up an equally strange noise.

No, none of that. This was fucking serious. It wasn’t her fault she was so bad at confrontation. She’d never had any practice with it before being trapped in this hole.

She tried to gather herself back up, clearing her throat and rearing up to her full height, despite being dwarfed by his lanky frame. “You are terrible. And I’m never going to be as terrible as you. And you…you deserved it.”

“Ooooo, damn, Vivee. Goin’ right for the jugular today! Literally, even. Not enough that you literally snap my head off? Wanna rip the rest of me apart too? Wanna kill me? You wanna try again? Huh? I saw you got a swanky new little arm there, learning to use the gift. See, that’s almost insulting. I been working with you all this time, and Mia’s the one that finally gets you to lose your temper. Hurts my fuckin’ feelings…”

“I had to! I didn’t have a choice. You didn’t give me a choice. You never give me a choice in anything. I had to do it.”

“Really? So it was life or death there at the end when you popped my neck in two? Woulda killed me, snuffed me right out. Bet it felt good, didn’t it? Was it good for you?”

He took another step forward, and Vivian chanced a look down at her still-healing limb. “I-I…No! No, I’m not like that. I’m not like you people.”

Behind her, Dorothy took her first steps along the yellow brick road.

“Thought I deserved it?” he grinned. “C’mawn, baby, whatever makes you feel better. Wanna hit me again? Get it all outta your system?”

“I don’t want to hurt you! I’m not like that!”

“Yeah?”

He extended one pale finger, leaning towards her. Vivian instinctively leaned away, tensing up again. But he was taller than her, and she refused to back up. It was stupid, her having to lean back like this, bending her spine back until bending any more would have tipped her over. And his finger got closer and closer, taunting and threatening in that ‘not touching’ way. Stupid. Childish.

Lucas laughed, then made as if to back off…Only to think better of it a moment later. As she was straightening up, he darted his finger forward and jabbed her in the boob with it.

Her eyes shot open wide, and she swung her still-healing arm in a blur, smacking him hard across the face. The sound wasn’t as satisfying as she had hoped, her skin still not fully formed. It was more of a heavy meaty thud more than anything. But it got him hard across the cheek. And there it was again, that little flare of dark satisfaction. Even if it was wrong and it wasn’t really her.

Before she even knew it, she was following it up with another slap, this time from her good hand. It was still half-regrowing some of her fingers, but there was that satisfying flesh-on-flesh clap that echoed around the apartment— audible over the movie playing. Lucas staggered back, head snapping back to glare at her. When she swung at him again, he retaliated, grabbing onto her arm and jerking it away. His cheek was already starting to turn bright red where her palm had connected with pale, sallow skin.

“Ow! Fuck!”

“Let go!”

She yanked at him and he yanked back, sending them both stumbling and upsetting the coffee table. Books and videos went sliding in all directions as it tipped over with a crash. They were both yelling expletives, which did not match the happy tune the scarecrow was singing back in Oz. Lucas was stronger, and he had her on the defensive as her knees hit the couch and she buckled down onto a cushion with an angry cry. He had just opened his mouth to taunt her yet again when her shoe caught him directly in the gut and pushed, sending him backwards to trip over the coffee table as he sprawled out in the mess.

“Vivee you’re bein’ a goddamn bitch!”

She managed to pull herself upright, advancing on him. “Bastard! You shouldn’t have—”

Her words were cut off as he kicked her. His long, scrawny leg rocketed his foot forward to hit her square between the legs. And even if she didn’t have testicles, it had been a cruel and accurate hit. Her cheeks puffed and her words were gone as she grabbed at her crotch and reeled back again. Lucas was a dirty fighter, but she hadn’t expected him to do something like that. That was a direct nutshot.

Actually, even Lucas looked surprised at his luck, and his kick’s effectiveness. His feet scrambled for hold as he stumbled in the mess from his table, papers flying in all directions. He hit her in a rough tackle, sending them both flying right into the back of the couch so hard that the whole thing tilted over, sending them thudding painfully onto the wooden floor. She heard something break and shatter. A lamp, maybe? It didn’t matter. They fought as they rolled, a mess of tangled limbs and curses.

“Nnh!”

Lucas moaned when she bit him, as she latched her teeth into the side of his shoulder. His blue bug-eyed glare flickered shut, and he made a strange sound as long bony fingers latched into her hair, pushing her into the bite and smothering her face-first into his neck. With his other hand, he managed to grab a handful of her ass through her stained jeans, squeezing and kneading. As her hips bucked, he only pushed her back down, grinding her over the bulge in his khakis.

And then he started…kissing her? His lips relaxed over his bared teeth, and started pressing them to her hair and forehead and her newly healed cheek. Vivian had been expecting retaliation, breath still hissing hot where she was biting him. But when there was only the softer touch of his dry lips, she released him with a start. Jolting upright, his kisses still trying to follow her, she stared down at him in clear shock as she straddled him, looming over him with her arms on both sides of his skinny body.

That wasn’t what was supposed to happen…

He took her distraction as an opening, surging up from the floor and rolling on top of her. She struggled again, but more hesitantly. When she socked him in the ribs, all he did was grab her wrist and pin it back down. His lips finally found hers, pale and dry and strangely cold…as was his tongue when he found her mouth half-open in surprise and invited himself inside. But all she could taste was mold, and she wondered if she should bite down on his tongue for his assumptions: bite it off like that time Evie had made her bite it off, during her first attempt at escape.

God, how long had it been since she had even tried to escape?

“Vivee-doll…Baby…C’mawn….” Lucas was slurring pet names against her face, his kisses eager but ill-practiced. He released his grip on her wrist and, when it didn’t lift to hit him again, he was free to start pushing up the bottom of her shirt. A rough palm flattened itself along her belly and slid upward.

How long had it been since anyone had touched her kindly? Even if it was someone she despised…

“Vivee…” he tried again.

She turned her face away, mind still in turmoil. But he mistook the gesture as she bared her throat, merely kissing and sucking at the skin there instead, his stubble scraping like sandpaper. The ragged remains of her bra were impatiently pushed up and out of the way, strung along her collarbone as he started groping at her chest with no elegance, seizing too hard on breasts that were too small for such rough handling. He groaned and slobbered into her neck, and suckled hard enough that it would leave bruises for later.

…As if bruises mattered anymore to people like them… _Him_. People like him.

The Wizard of Oz was still playing faintly, and she vaguely recognized it as one of her favorite parts with the Scarecrow’s song. It only lended an even more surreal air to what was happening. Her view of the TV was blocked by the overturned couch, with Lucas pressing her down into the filthy rug and moaning her name like all the times she had uncertainly moaned his, right on that very sofa.

He pushed her shirt up and leaned down to suck at her chest, fastening his lips onto each nipple in turn. It tickled and she couldn’t help but squirm and arch her back, inhaling a sharp little noise as she did. Lucas only hummed appreciatively, finally having wrenched a reaction out of her. The top of his bristled head blocked her view as he painted her chest with saliva, but she could feel his fingertips as they traveled down the plane of her stomach, fumbling with the button at the top of her jeans.

Just like all the times she had wanted him to, in her more private and reluctant little moldy fantasies.

Her own fingers dug into the loose fabric of his hoodie, holding tight. She had a good enough grip that she could easily throw him to the side again. But though her fingers clenched and tensed, she didn’t move him. Especially not when he popped the button and parted the zipper to her pants, shoving his hand through the elastic of her underwear and down between her legs. He was still fumbling, rubbing her without grace. When he went to slip a finger inside, she pushed away at the discomfort.

At least he had the werewithal to pull his hand out, greedily licking and sucking at his pointer digit before sticking three fingers into his mouth. With a sloppy noise, he withdrew them and stuck a messy spit-covered hand back into her panties. Part of her winced at it, but damned if it wasn’t effective. Smearing it into the cleft between her thighs, it eased his path inward as he pushed up with one finger, then two. Thrusting them back and forth with increasingly wet noises, he groaned into her chest and scraped at her clit with the heel of his palm.

Vivian’s legs had parted on their own while she was still trying to parse what had happened, chest rising and falling rapidly as she clawed her grip in his hoodie. Their little fight had become something else entirely. When he pulled himself up and kissed her again, she didn’t bite back. It still tasted like mold, and maybe she was just starved for touch that didn’t hurt, and there was still no way in hell she trusted someone like Lucas…but it felt so good…and maybe if she just…

“Lucas…this doesn't...it doesn't mean...” She kissed him and let herself lay back.

He grinned into her lips, thrusting his fingers a little quicker as he turned onto his side and started grinding his bulge against the side of her hips. The intent was pretty clear. And even though it was such an obviously bad idea to indulge, Vivee rolled to face him, working at the front of his khakis with a hand that still trying to heal the last of her fingers. Not that Lucas was the sort to care about such things. At least, he definitely didn’t seem to care when she unzipped him and found him straining at the thin fabric of his briefs. Of course a redneck like him would wear tightie-whities…

There was a pleased grunt when she pulled him free, wrapping her hand around his length. He didn’t even give her any time to start him off, and just started rutting into her closed fist like a mad thing. She tried to move with him, pumping her wrist and squeezing him as he groaned into her ear. They lay side by side on the dirty rug, their arms crossing at the front as they clutched onto one another, getting each other off as the movie was drowned out by sighs and moans and heavy breathing.

She came first, her back arching as he pushed his fingers in up to the knuckles, unwinding the lingering nerves still knotted in the pit of her belly. Giving up on jerking him, she released him and concentrated fully on herself, until he had wrung every last noise from her. He snickered at her gasping, pulling an embarrassingly soaked hand out from her thighs and sticking them back in his mouth. With a sucking pop, he released them before wrapping his fist around his cock to finish himself off.

He grimaced and sweated the whole time, asking through gritted teeth, “Y-ya wanna swallow it, baby? How bout ya suck me?”

No matter the post-orgasmic lull, she wasn’t ready for that, and Vivian shook her head to say as much. He cursed and uttered a displeased snarl. And when Lucas suddenly launched his other hand forward and grabbed a fistful of her hair, she was afraid that he was going to try pushing her down anyway. But he just held onto her as the rapid slapping of flesh grew faster. It wasn’t very long at all until he suddenly yanked her closer and decided that he needed to come all over her instead.

It was silly to worry about at this point, but she was worried that it would be black sludge. It was almost a relief that it was just the usual sticky white stuff, spurting up onto her belly as he smeared it into her with a happy groan. With a crooked, stupid grin, he rolled onto his back and draped an arm around her shoulder with an exaggerated sigh.

Vivian grumbled at the mess on her stomach, jeans strung down around her hips, but closed her eyes and let her mind empty of its anger and sorrow. It had been…weird. Just as weird as she’d always imagined it. But it had felt so much better than anything her own fingers could have wrought. And maybe Lucas wasn’t entirely—

“Fuck…It’s so much better when they’re actually into it,” Lucas said, still grinning and staring up at the wooden slats of the ceiling. “Wish you would’ve blown me, though.”

Her eyes half opened, expression falling back into a frown. “Really?”

“I’m just sayin’—”

She shoved him away and sat up, wiping a hand down over the spunk on her belly and into his hoodie. He snarled something about ‘having just washed that’, which she knew was not true anyway, but she ignored him. Pulling the tattered remains of her bra and shirt back into place, she buttoned her jeans and hefted herself upright.

He snagged her with one arm around the waist. “Wait, wait! Damn, Viv, don’t be like all that. How about we move on into my room for round two? Show each other a l’il tongue action and then the main event. I got lots of stuff if you’re into it. Goddamn, you were so tight, was afraid you were going to snap my fingers off like you did my head. You’re still all wound up, baby. You need to loosen up, in more ways than one!”

“Ugh.” She pulled away, looking down at where her arm was finally starting to solidify back to normal. “I’m…going to go for a walk. I think I need air.”

He lifted a brow. “You? Goin’ outside by yerself? Uhm…I mean, you never have before? Ain’t you scared of the Moldies? And pretty much everything else?”

“Yes. I was. Am. I don’t know anymore.”

“You ain’t stupid enough to make a break for it, are ya?”

“I’m not stupid…”

“Well, whatever. Just don’t fuck around too long out there or I’ll lock you out when I fix the goddamn door again. And look what you did to this place. Maybe I oughta start suing for damages? Oh, and charging rent too. Heh, you’re lucky you’re my girlfriend, or you’d nev—”

“I’m not your girlfriend!” she said fiercely. “I wasn’t joking.”

“Uh…Didn’t we just—? I mean, I know we didn’t actually fuck yet, but—”

“I’m not your girlfriend! I told you, I’m not like you or the others. Especially you.” She looked down at where the mold closed over and healed the last of her new fingers. “Even if I’m infected now. At least I can be cured. Maybe even the others can be cured. But you? I think you’re something else. Something I’m not sure has a cure.”

He narrowed his sickly blue eyes at her. “You know how to ruin a mood, Viv. You know, things can be a lot harder for you here, if it wasn’t for me! I’ve been real nicey-nice with you, considering. Don’t think I’m going to take your shit just because I fingerbanged you a little. Hey, don’t you turn away from me! You stop right there!” He lifted his voice. “I’m the one in charge! You get back here, goddamnit!”

She headed for the door even as he protested, pulling it open. Behind her, his tone changed.

“Wait! C’mon, I didn’t mean it like that. Baby, we can still talk this over! How about when you get back—”

The door slammed behind her.

Lucas was left baffled and conflicted and alone, while the movie continued to play on. He’d been so distracted that he barely had noticed the Wizard of Oz had been on the whole time. Vivian and her goddamn love of shitty musicals… He glanced to the TV, where Dorothy was consoling the Tin Man and his plight.

"No Heart... All Hollow. Oh, if I only had a heart!”

 

* * *

 

Vivian trudged across the yard, more steady than before. Still angry, but no longer the bubbling rage she’d felt after she’d escaped the party. And some part of her felt… sad? Something like pity? For herself, or Lucas, or both? For everyone here? But it was no good feeling sorry for herself anymore. It was up to her to defend herself. Not just during Eveline’s parties, either. She had to protect herself from now on. No more apologies or passive hope.

Her body was whole once more, and the blackness of Evie’s ‘gifts’ were now mostly in her control. If she worked at it a little more, she might prove herself to be more than the secretary or toy or whatever else they thought her as. She would get herself out, one way or another.

Pushing her new hands into her pockets, Vivian turned her meandering path into the swamp. The mud squelched under her shoes, following Lucas’s old footpath into the Dulvey lowlands, towards the mines and the labs still being built inside them.

Maybe it was time to press a little harder about her ‘options’ with the company.


End file.
